


Little Technicolor Things

by tekhnicolor



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: :), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-05-20 21:23:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 72,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6025519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tekhnicolor/pseuds/tekhnicolor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis is a poor writer and recent university graduate, depressed, anxious, and living in London when he meets Harry, an artist with a secret who likes to paint sunrises and pretty boys from California.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This Reckless Planet Spins

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction and is therefore, by definition, not true. It is not meant to accurately represent the persons appearing and being referenced in it. It is purely for fun, and I hope you all enjoy it!
> 
> I've also done literally almost zero research whatsoever in writing this due to being both incredibly busy and even more incredibly lazy, so I apologize if I state something that is really super duper wrong. Let me know?
> 
>  **WARNING::** There is a point in which this fic will involve references to mild physical abuse. There are also mild references to both depression and anxiety. 
> 
> (I promise it ends happy though and is not entirely angsty and tragic. I honestly love these two boys so much I can't even stand the thought of writing a fictional story about them that doesn't end well.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALSO: I am aware that it doesn't really blizzard in London in November, but it does in my story so shhhhhh, suspend your disbelief for two minutes. ;)

The way this boy talks is _unbelievable._

It’s like he’s inhaled an entire tub of molasses and now his words are coming out slurred and slow, drawling on and on and Louis has never wanted to chloroform someone so badly in his entire life.

He likes words a lot is the thing, loves them even, and listening to someone disrespect them by sounding so utterly bored with the way their mouth curves around each syllable is honestly a travesty of human language. The boy’s sitting on the island in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by ten or so eager listeners, and Louis thinks the very least he could do would be to sound vaguely interested in the words coming out of his own mouth. But no. Instead, he’s speaking as slow as humanly possible, filling his sentences with these ridiculous, unnecessary pauses, and losing his train of thought more often than not in a way that makes Louis want to throw his entire glass of long island iced tea at him and see if it will wake him up.

He may have had a little too much to drink.

He isn’t even listening to the boy, really. He’s sitting on a counter in the far back of the kitchen, one leg folded beneath himself and the other dangling over the cabinets below him, head resting uncomfortably against the side of the fridge. He doesn’t even know whose goddamn house this is, but the kitchen is freezing and the room he was in earlier is freezing and it might be partly due to the fact that he lost his jacket a good hour ago, but still. He wishes he was back in his own shitty flat, buried in fifteen blankets and stuffing his face with a pizza. If he had known how dull this party was going to be, he definitely would have put up a better fight against coming here. Probably would have won too, because he may be small but his friends are no match for him when he fights dirty. Which he does, always, because he’s at least a couple of inches shorter than most of them and he needs some sort of advantage in order to keep the fights fair. What can he say? He’s a big fan of winning.

As it is, he feels a bit like he’s lost something. Aside from his jacket. Time, maybe. All twenty-four years of his life. At the very least he’s lost a nice, comfy evening spent curled up around a pillow on the sofa, warm and soft while outside the blizzard tries and fails to get to him. Ha, take that, blizzard. Louis is the blizzard wizard. No blizzards can get to him. Not one. He scrubs a finger over his eyebrow and thumps his heel against the cabinets below him, knocking wood against wood. He needs new shoes, hasn’t had the money to buy any in forever, the maroon Vans he’s wearing faded to an almost muddy brown color, their once-white laces frayed at the ends.

Being broke isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Like, he has no idea how these people in books and movies and stuff who are supposedly dirt poor can still travel around the world and take weekly road trips and what not. He honestly can’t remember much from Kerouac’s _On the Road_ , but that’s what he’s thinking of now, and how there might have been something about prostitution in there. He’s not sure if he could do that, honestly. Though there is a sadistic part of him that wants to see if he actually would, the part of him that likes seeing how people react when they’re right on the edge. It’s like everyone’s the same until that very last moment, and then they’re all exploding in different directions like a firecracker or something.

That’s kind of good—he should write that down. He doesn’t, because he hasn’t been inspired enough to write in months, but he really should.

Now that he’s thinking about it though, he hasn’t exactly been inspired enough to do anything at all in months. Not that he doesn’t _want_ to do things, because he does. He’s just exhausted and has zero motivation to do them.

Suddenly the kitchen erupts in laughter, and Louis—he doesn’t even _look_. He _knows_ it’s molasses boy, probably smiling primly because he finally reached the end of some terrible joke that took him way too long to tell.

One time when Louis was little he had tied himself to a tree because he was playing pirates by himself in the backyard. He had stolen his friend’s older brother’s book on Faust the week before so that the brother would forget about his Lit exams and take them to the skate park on Saturday, and sometime during the thievery he had managed to read the blurb on the back of the book, about Faust selling his soul to the devil and all that. He remembers being stuck tied to that tree for at least an hour and being unable to set himself free before deciding, screw it, and promising the devil his soul if he would just get him untied before his sisters came home. It hadn’t worked, of course. His sisters had come home, and he had kept his soul.

Now, he’s thinking he’d be willing to give it away for free. He’ll even throw in his best mate Niall’s soul, just for kicks. Anything to escape being here in this house with molasses boy not ten feet away.

He supposes he could just get up and leave the room, but the _drama_. The _complaining_. He loves being dramatic over trivial things. It’s like a good sport.

He knocks his heel against the cabinets again.

It’s Bonfire Night, as well as the birthday of whoever’s house this is, and Louis finds it more than a bit depressing that he doesn’t have anywhere else to be. He wonders if he’s going to have enough money to fly home and visit his parents for the holidays, wonders if they’re even going to want to see him after he’s been mostly ignoring them for the past six months. It’s terrible of him, and he knows it. He just . . . he doesn’t really want to face them until he can prove to them that his university education was actually worth something, that _he_ is actually worth something, that he’s capable of all the things he set out to do when he hopped on a plane and flew across the pond nearly four years ago, when his whole family had gotten into a shouting match over whether or not he was actually, seriously gay or if he was just mildly confused and needed some guidance. They'd come 'round eventually regarding the whole gay thing, thank God, but the whole hey-dad-instead-of-going-into-business-with-you-like-you've-always-wanted-me-to-I'm-going-overseas-to-study-English-and-probably-be-poor-and-jobless-for-the-rest-of-my-life thing is something they still haven't quite come to terms with. He drums his fingers against the half-empty glass he’s holding and tries not to think about it, looking around—and around and around, anywhere but at this ridiculous boy and his sloth-like voice that’s starting to want to make Louis go over there and poke him until he wakes the fuck up. Nobody who talks that slowly can actually be all the way awake. It’s just not possible. Louis needs to escape. He needs to get out of here.

It isn’t even entirely the boy’s fault though—he’s just been so out of it lately. So out of touch with the rest of the world, with his friends and with people in general. He feels his hands start shaking a little when he wonders if they can tell, if it’s blatantly obvious to everyone around him how out of practice he is. God, but they probably can. He’s usually into the whole party scene, loves the dizziness that comes from getting lost in a sea of people, from being one face in a crowd, swimming under light and color. He likes watching boys watch him when he dances, likes catching their attention and drawing them in, likes having a bit of fun without worrying about whatever’s going on in his real life. And he usually likes hearing people talk and sizing them up, taking note of their body language and tells and reading them like a good book. But it’s just, these last few months have been hard as hell, and he would honestly be in his bed right now crying over some shitty romance novel if his friends hadn’t made him come tonight.

He loves them—would die for them, seriously—but they don’t understand where he’s at right now.

And so thanks to them, his usual life-of-the-party self is now sitting here alone in a corner, ice cubes rattling against the edges of his glass.

There’s a snowstorm going on outside, now that he thinks about it, so he can’t actually drive home anyway, trapped inside four walls of swirling white. Even though it isn’t quite Christmas yet, the house is all decorated on the inside, red and green lights twinkling and confetti strewn across the floor like sprinkles. He wants a cigarette—his body is itching for a cigarette, the way it always does when he can’t bring himself to sit still, but he feels awful smoking inside the house and outside the wind is blowing hard enough to knock him over. Sometime during their incessant text messages ordering him to be here tonight though, his friends had told him he only had to stay until midnight, which means that there’s only three hours left until he can head home.

He can do this. He can be a socialite. A fucking brilliant one too.

“. . . and she did tell me she had four of them, but I just thought she was crazy or s’mthing,” molasses boy is saying, and no, Louis cannot do this. People are annoying, and he wants to sleep until they all go away. The boy’s voice keeps knocking about in his head though, and Louis thinks he’s finally nearing the end of some story about a weird art convention and four monkeys and a sobbing girl. He’s literally been sitting there on the kitchen island just talking for the last half hour, and aside from Louis, all the other people in the kitchen seem to find it riveting, hovering around the boy like he’s about to tell them what the bloody secret to the universe is or something.

It’s sandwiches, obviously. Sandwiches are the secret. Bloody posh boys know nothing.

He takes a moment to actually look at the boy, bringing his glass up to his lips but not actually drinking any of it, just using it to hide his stare. The kid’s back is to him, so Louis can’t get a good look at his face, but his hair is a long mess of curls atop his head, looking entirely like he just rolled out of bed that morning and stumbled down the stairs. It’s all cowlicks and big, mousy-brown ringlets that hang past his shoulders, which are broad and point down to what looks to be a ridiculously narrow waist beneath his long coat, a pastel peach thing that most likely came out of some Burberry women’s spring collection. He looks long and gangly, a bit awkward but in that annoyingly charming way, like he’s halfway between being a clumsy teenager and a full grown man. Everything about him is ridiculous—his hair, his body, the way he can’t seem to talk without flapping his hands about, his stupid, stupid voice.

Louis wants to shut him up.

“Hey, mate, you made it!”

He jumps at the sound of a voice so close to where he’s sitting, and seriously, _when_ did the idea of human contact start sounding absolutely terrifying to him? Why wasn’t he _informed,_ given time to _prepare?_ The voice is recognizable though, not only because of the heavy Scottish brogue but also because Louis knows this person, they’re friends, and god, he really should not be shaking so badly right now. All he has to do is carry a conversation for a couple of minutes, and with someone he doesn’t even hate for that matter.

“’Course I did, you oaf,” he greets, mouth stretching around a grin, half-forced, and leans forward from his perch on the counter so the boy—Allan—can give him an awkward, one-armed hug. He wills his hands to stop shaking as he pats his back.

Sometimes, when there’s something he really doesn’t want to do or something that scares him, he’ll pretend to be a character in a book just to get outside of himself, like it helps to watch himself and his interactions in third person instead of first. There are days when it makes more sense than others.

“You alright, mate?” Allan says, and it took Louis ages longer than it should have when he first moved here to figure out that the expression was basically a “what’s up” and there wasn’t something perpetually worrying about his appearance. He doesn’t know why he thought going to uni— _college_ —this side of the pond would be a good idea. America was so much better, honestly. “Stella owes me a tenner. Thought you wouldn’t come. But I, I had faith in ya, didn’t I?” Allan hops onto the counter next to Louis, knocking over at least three plastic cups in the process and spilling beer onto the floor with a series of quiet curses.

Louis can’t help but smile genuinely this time, shaking his head a bit. He does love his friends, even if they drag him out of bed to go to boring parties every now and then. And Allan is nice, a heavy-set kid with red hair and an absolutely unnecessary number of freckles who somehow always knows just what to say to make Louis feel better. “You too, man,” he says, as Allan finally finishes situating himself, and it’s honest. “Hey,” he adds, like an afterthought, scooting closer to the boy and turning his head to whisper conspiratorially. “What’s that kid’s name, with the weird hair?” And it really isn’t a bloody afterthought at all; it’s the only thing he’s been able to think about for the last fifteen godforsaken minutes. At least.

Allan nudges him in the shoulder, and Louis jostles a little, putting his long island iced tea down on the counter before it spills, as far away from Allan as he can manage. He doesn’t want it much anyway.

“What, you like?” Louis didn’t even know Allan _had_ eyebrows, but apparently he does, because he’s waggling them at Louis suggestively and Louis wants to chloroform him too maybe. Just chloroform everyone and get the hell away from this ridiculous gingerbread circus house he’s found himself trapped in.

Instead, he just looks at Allan flatly. “I’d like,” he says, “for him to shut up so I can get some peace and quiet around here.”

Allan just cackles at him, all ginger hair and freckles and head thrown back, chest heaving like he’s the funniest thing in the world, and Louis breathes a bit easier. “It’s a party, mate,” he tells him, wiping at his eyes. “If you want peace an’ quiet, you’d best go back to your monastery.”

And oh. He’s so funny. The funniest.

Louis wrinkles his nose and looks away. “Fuck off,” he quips, but he’s trying not to laugh. “Seriously though, what’s his name? I want to throw old food at him.” He wiggles around a little on the counter, peering across the room for the hundredth time that evening to get a better look at the boy. He’s turned slightly now, so Louis can see him in profile—the sharp cut of his jaw and slope of his nose, how long his eyelashes are, how red his lips look against skin pale enough for Louis to bet he hasn’t been out of doors in months. The lights in the house have all been dimmed, the shutters drawn against the rain and snow, and the boy’s whole body is lit up by twinkling Christmas lights. It’s almost like they’re actually there—in his hair, buried in the material of his collared shirt, instead of hanging from the ceiling or ‘round the bannister of the staircase. He looks like a princess.

Ah, and there Louis goes again. He always does that to people: turns them into characters meant for storybooks and then is disappointed when he actually gets to know them and they don’t live up to his quixotic imaginings. It’s rather unfair, honestly, but at this point he’s been doing it for years and there’s really no sense in stopping now. So yeah, molasses boy looks like a bloody princess with twinkle lights in his hair and that’s just the way it is.

When Louis looks back at Allan, he’s watching him with a half-curious, half-disturbed look in his eyes, like he isn’t sure if he wants to divulge information regarding the boy’s name to Louis and consequently be an accomplice to his evil plans. Which. He’s a smart kid, that Allan. Finally though, he shrugs, running a hand through his ginger hair until it’s sticking up at awkward angles. “Harry,” he says, and what the fuck kind of name is that? Louis’ glad he put his drink down earlier because he would have been choking on it at this point. “Harry S.” Allan continues. “That’s what they call ‘im. It’s his house party, you know. I don’t really know ‘im myself, but I guess he’s in good with Ginette and Toby. Ginette said, said he’s a right riot, but that nobody really knows what he’s about. Got some secrets and stuff I guess. I dunno, you should talk to ‘im. Might like ‘him, you never know.” He finishes with a wink that makes Louis want to push him off the counter.

“Doubt that.” Louis rubs a finger over his eyebrow, and wow, yeah, that was a lot of information. Harry S. _S_ for what? He thinks the whole thing could be a bad children’s book, like _Harry S. and the Horrible House Party_ or something. Maybe he’ll write it one day.

His knee bounces on the counter. Outside the kitchen, someone shouts, the sound dissolving shortly after into a string of loud giggles, and Louis feels the way his whole body flinches and tightens up at the noise. He’s been this way for nearly a year now, holed up in his flat for so long that sudden sounds and motions make him all twitchy. He’s just really _tired,_ is the thing, like all the energy has been drained out of him.

At least he’s self-aware though. That’s nice.

“. . . the next open mic night,” Allan is saying, and shit, Louis must have missed the first few sentences because he has no idea what the kid is going on about.

He blinks. “Sorry, what?”

“When are you coming to open mic night again?” Allan asks, squinting at him curiously. Louis can actually feel his heartrate increase with the question, and he has no idea why that happens because he loves open mic night. Allan owns a café with one of his friends downtown, and on Tuesday nights they hold poetry readings in the basement, complete with complementary snacks and mood lighting, and it’s always been one of Louis’ favorite weekly events, sharing his poetry and stories with people being something he usually looks forward to. “We’ve got so many people coming now I think we might have to expand of somethin’,” Allan goes on. “But everyone’s always askin’ after you. Your stories are like the talk of the town.”

He laughs. “Come off it, mate.”

Then he winces, because he’s starting to sound like he’s actually from here when no, no way, that’s the last thing in the world he wants. He’s from California, and he’s bloody well going to use that to get people to like him.

Dammit.

He sweeps his frin— _bangs_ —off of his face and focuses on his breathing. He knows Allan’s making a joke, because the "town" he's talking about is actually London, for Christ’s sake, but he also knows that people do enjoy his stories. Short stories are his thing, his _forte_ , so to speak. He likes the challenge of having such a limited medium to work with, so that every word is important, every word has to count for something. It reflects his philosophy of life—that every moment counts, that there isn’t room to waste them or worry about regrets.

He’s been sort of failing spectacularly on that front lately.

“Well, just come around sometime, yeah?” Allan is saying, and Louis makes a vague sound of assent, his eyes falling back to the boy—Harry—on the other side of the room.

When he doesn’t say anything else, Allan grins at him, a knowing look in his eyes that Louis kind of hates. “Well, if you get bored of . . .” He waves a hand, surveying the space around them on the counter. There’s nothing there, just countertop and cardboard and empty red cups. “Whatever it is you’re doing besides eavesdropping, some of us are thinking of braving the outdoors later for fireworks if the weather clears. Might be fun.”

Louis nods absently, thinking that that does sound fun but that he probably won’t go. He doesn’t say so though, just says, “Alright, man, thanks. I just might take you up on that.”

Allan laughs, shaking his head and jumping off the counter, seeing straight through him. “You’re a shit liar, you know that?” And Louis shrugs, like it doesn’t bother him. Like it doesn’t eat at him, thinking that everyone around him knows how rusty he is at this whole being around people thing. “Say hi to your folks for me,” Allan adds, before he’s giving Louis’ arm a light squeeze and maneuvering through the kitchen and out onto the living room dancefloor.

And shit, now Louis’ feeling awful again. He hasn’t even talked with his mom on the phone in months. It makes his stomach twist with guilt, because he loves his family more than anything in the world, and fuck but he really needs that cigarette. He’s just going to sit somewhere quiet and warm himself up with a few cigarettes, and then he's going to go home and sleep for another month until he magically feels okay about his life again. That's the plan, Stan. Stan’s cool. Louis has a friend back home named Stan. He scoots forward on the counter before dropping his feet to the floor, hopping off lightly and leaving his drink on the countertop among the rest of the trash. He can hear the winter outside even over the music, whizzing like hundreds of ceiling fans, and he’s lived here long enough to know what it looks like. Snow for miles, all blue and white, the freeways flooded like rivers. He knows the minute he steps outside he’ll feel it right down to his bones, that burning cold that tingles beneath his skin.

Man, he doesn’t want that right now.

He just wants an empty room somewhere, with maybe a window he can crack open, and a quiet space to sit with the journal he keeps with him all the time, waiting for the strike of some long-lost inspiration. The book is leather-bound and tied, covered in some of his favorite quotes and lyrics and phrases, and inside is where he writes—poetry, thoughts, random scribbles, it’s everything he thinks about that matters to him. He’s going to be a writer someday, a good one too, but for now he’s broke and jobless and wasting his time in _Harry S.’_ s bloody freezing kitchen. Shoving his hands into his jean pockets, he can feel his journal in one, small and worn, and in the other his pack of cigarettes and a lighter, just waiting to be used. He lets it dance through his fingers for a moment, watching over his shoulder as he makes his way out the side door of the kitchen, watching the boy—watching Harry—as he seems to sit under a halo of fairy lights, surrounded on all sides by eager listeners. His eyes are green, Louis notices. Big and forest green. There’s a moment as he turns his body sideways to slip through the door, when he thinks he catches him looking back at him, smile wide on his cherry-red lips, but then Louis is turning the corner, that deep, droning voice following him out into the living room.

He resolutely ignores the shiver that passes like electricity through his spine.

It’s a mess of people out here, moving together under some hip-hop holiday remix Louis has never heard, and he immediately heads for the staircase, ignoring all of them, hands still in his pockets. He counts the stairs as he goes up—nineteen—and then makes his way down the long hallway. Man, this Harry kid must be rich as hell to be able to afford a house like this. He looked young, downstairs with a face full of fairy lights, but he can’t be too young if he’s supporting himself like this. Maybe just out of uni, which would make him just around Louis’ age. Which. Why does Louis care about that? Why is he thinking about that?

He tries a random door on his left, and it’s a bathroom, which he knows will get stuffy if he smokes in it. Still, he steps inside, looking around. It’s all mint-green, like toothpaste, with little embroidered towels and those carpet-y rug things made of loops of rope. He feels like he’s in some kind of candy castle, the inside all fresh and green and the outside all white flurries—mint and winter, sea and snow. Louis almost feels like a prince. A weird prince, from some candy-cane fairy tale, but still, a prince.

There’s a small window above the toilet, and Louis goes to look through it, but he’s caught for a moment at the sight of his reflection in the wide mirror.

He looks a right mess.

And it's bad. His hair is longer than it usually is, sticking off of his head at a hundred different angles, the bright chestnut brown faded to a more dull color. There are bags under his eyes that have started to redden from lack of sleep, from staying awake through morning with a pack of cigarettes and his journal and thoughts that won't arrange themselves into anything coherent. His clothes are too big on him—even his favorite batman t-shirt is a bit loose around his shoulders and under his arms, swallowing his torso up in a way it never has before.

Whatever. It adds to the whole image anyway: scruffy hair, light stubble, black jeans ripped at the knees and rolled up at the ankles, and a shirt that's too big. Very broke-ass writer, if he does say so himself. Also genuinely cool person. Because batman is cool. Still, it takes him a moment to tear his eyes from his reflection, from the way his irises have managed to make blue such a dull color, the way his freckles are grey, the shadowy hollowness of his cheeks. Maybe the image is fitting for where he is in his life right now, but still, he really needs to shave. Under the pale bathroom light, he looks halfway to dying already. It scares him, a little.

He swallows and looks away, because he’s gotten rather good at ignoring his problems until he absolutely has to face them, and heads over toward the toilet and the little window above it, wanting still to get a good look at the storm going on outside. Kneeling on the seat, he squints through the glass. Through the snow he can make out nothing but a square of light, tilted and skewed, like it’s coming from the same building that he’s in and so he is looking at it at an angle. He wonders what it is, if there’s a room in the house somewhere where someone has a light on and is laughing with their friends about something dumb, a glass of red wine in their hand and a blanket slung over their shoulders. It’s a nice picture, Louis thinks, sighing to himself. As he stares out into the storm, his vision gradually becomes focused, and he starts to make out the shape of something just in front of the golden window. It’s a dark shape, hovering against the near invisible wall of the house, and it takes him a bit of squinting before he realizes it’s a balcony. A balcony with a roof over it. Brilliant. _Bloody brilliant_ —screw Britishness of the phrase. He can smoke and stay dry—relatively—at the same time, and as far as he can tell there won’t be any people around to bother him with their slow voice patterns.

Yay.

After a minute his breath starts to fog up the glass, to make it all blurry and soft, and so he leans back and smudges the fog away with the wrist of his jacket before leaning back in, pressing his nose to the windowpane and cupping his hands around his eyes, smiling at the dizzy snowflakes and that one spot of gold. When it gets blurry again, he leans away and drags his finger through the fuzziness, drawing a smiley face there and letting out a soft giggle that ends on a sigh.

He watches while it blurs around the edges, waiting for it to vanish entirely.

 

* * *

 

“S’that a self-portrait?”

Louis starts at the voice, the feeling similar to what he imagines turning a corner and finding himself at the end of a gun might feel like, and falls backward properly off the toilet seat. He lands hard on his back, head bumping painfully against the side of the tub. For a moment, everything is just a blur of minty green and white and gold behind his eyelids, his body refusing to move while he tries to make sense of what just happened.

“Oh God, m’sorry,” the voice says, much closer than it had been just a moment ago, and Louis blinks his eyes a few times, trying to clear his head. He recognizes that voice, definitely, one-hundred percent recognizes it, because it’s been buzzing in the back of his head for the last hour. Up close, the unhurried cadence actually makes him feel calm. “I didn’t mean to, like, scare you like that,” the voice continues, and Louis grips hard at the arms trying to help him up, getting himself into a sitting position with his back leaning against the wall. There’s a figure crouched next to him, draped in pink and looking very much like a shadow in Louis’ still-fuzzy vision, and yeah, he thinks, that’s definitely Harry. Harry S. Whatever. He remembers noticing the peach-colored coat downstairs, the piece of clothing likely more expensive than Louis’ whole wardrobe. And now Louis just—he just feels stupid. Because the boy had probably just come up here to use the loo and now he’s caught Louis poking around and drawing faces on his windows and that’s a bit weird, Louis knows. He’s about to apologize when Harry speaks again. “Are you alright?”

Louis nods, focusing on the deceleration of his heartrate. “Yeah, I’m . . . I’m alright, thanks. Sorry about,”—he gestures vaguely toward the window—“whatever that was. I get a bit bored sometimes.”

Harry laughs, his long hair shaking as it brushes against his shoulders. “Me as well,” he says, and man, his voice is deep. Louis’ vision has cleared for the most part, and he can see the boy’s face right in front of him, filling all the corners of his vision. He looks so young, all big green eyes and dimpled cheeks, and it makes his voice seem so out of place in his body. Louis nearly laughs at the juxtaposition. “I like your face, by the way,” Harry adds, and he must notice the way Louis’ cheeks start to heat up because he goes on quickly, saying, “The one you drew, like, on the window. Though yours is nice too, obviously.”

Louis narrows his eyes at him. The boy is grinning from ear to ear, which means that he meant to say exactly what he said in the first place. Which is. Annoying, really. Louis finds himself laughing anyway, turning his head away with a small roll of his eyes. It’s stupid. This is all so stupid. He shakes his head. “’Obviously,” he repeats, and then begins to push himself up off the floor, brushing away Harry’s hands when the boy tries to help him. “I’m quite the talented artist, you know.” He isn’t. Like, not even slightly. He can hardly draw stick figures with straight lines, and he has absolutely no idea what the primary colors even are, but this oversized man-boy doesn’t need to know that. He makes a show of brushing off his jeans, because he can see Harry’s feet and he knows as soon as he stands up he’ll be face to face with him, which means words, and talking, and Louis is so out of practice it’s embarrassing sort of.

“I’m sure you are,” Harry says, and there’s a light teasing lilt to his voice that makes Louis huff out a laugh, hands tucking back into his pockets. He lifts his head to meet the boy’s eyes, and takes this moment to size him up, to look at all of him instead of just his back or side profile.

He’s tall, at least a few inches taller than Louis, wearing black jeans like Louis, only his are definitely a nicer brand and don’t have holes at the knees. Beneath his long coat is a white Oxford, buttoned all the way up save for the last button, a pink carnation pinned to the left side of his chest. It makes the pink in his cheeks and his mouth stand out, and God, but he looks good. Louis can’t stop thinking about how good he looks, how soft. There’s a set of gold bracelets on his left wrist, clanging about as he messes with his shirt.

“You’re American.”

Louis blinks. Once, twice.

“Yeah, um. Yeah, I am,” he says, and right. He really needs to get out of this bathroom before he does something stupid. “Well, I’m just gonna . . .” he trails off, jutting a thumb over his shoulder and taking a backward step away from the boy, reminding himself that Harry probably came in here originally for a reason having nothing to do with Louis.

Harry’s face morphs into something pouty, his teeth biting down on his bottom lip, and oh my God, who is this kid? _What_ is he?

“Oh,” he says. “Alright.”

And Louis is about to stay—he really, honest-to-God—is, but then he thinks about that balcony, and that golden room, and the fuzzy feeling he gets in his head when he’s drinking gets fuzzier and he just . . . he needs space. So he turns around with a small smile and a wave over his shoulder, leaving molasses boy behind him.

His hands start shaking again immediately, all the warmth from that small room draining from his body. He hadn’t wanted to run into anybody, especially not Harry or Harry S. or whoever, but for some reason the encounter had been somewhat . . . nice? It was the first person he’d spoken to in ages outside of his close friends who hadn’t made him want to go and hide in his room, drowning himself in blankets and microwavable food. But God, he isn’t ready for this. He isn’t ready for people and conversation and vulnerability and whatever else that entails, and maybe he’s taking things a bit fast because really, honestly, he only spoke five words to the boy, and no matter—

He shakes his head.

Balcony. Cigarette. One foot in front of the other. Right.

There are ceiling lights above his head, but they're off, all the tawdry signs of a last-minute house party mostly left downstairs, leaving the second floor bathed in grey and blue shadows. He passes a bedroom with the door open, can make out two figures inside, just silhouettes against the blue square background of a window, falling into each other on some bed. Louis hopes it's a guest room, for Harry's sake.

To his left at the end of the long hallway is a door, and it must be the room Louis’ looking for because there's a gold light spilling out from underneath it like stardust, like something brighter, pouring into the hallway like mist over the streets. He turns the doorknob.

And it's locked. Of course it's locked.

He wants to cry. Tonight has been long and this year has been longer and he's freezing cold and he really just wants a smoke and  _why_  on god's green earth couldn't this door just be unlocked because he pretty much just almost had a breakdown in some random kid's bathroom and he needs so badly for something to not go wrong in his life right now. He bangs his forehead against it, groaning, and maybe he's being a bit overdramatic but like, it's the only thing he wants right now. Really wants. If he had three wishes right at this moment, all three of them would be for this fucking door to just open already. He bangs his head against the wooden paneling again, just because. 

"A little harder and it might just give, you know.” And dammit, how did he find him? Not that Louis’ hiding, but. Still. Why couldn’t the boy just go back downstairs and entertain the rest of his mindless zombie guests?

He doesn't even turn around, just stops banging his head on the door. "Go away," he groans.

For a second he thinks it might work, that Harry might actually be leaving, because he can hear his feet shuffling around on the wooden floor, but then he feels a warmth next to him and the boy is leaning his forehead right against the door with him. Louis blinks at him, again and again until his face comes into focus, and it's all green eyes, green green green green green, swimming in front of him like a dizzy forest painting, hazy pine trees that stand for miles and miles under a summer dusk. His skin looks smooth, milky, pale cheeks washed in rose-colored pastels, and Louis wonders what he would look like with flowers in his hair. Oh god. He needs to leave. Like, now, preferably. He needs a cigarette.

"It's my house," the boy is saying, a smile swallowing all his words. "You go away."

Louis scoffs, squinting his eyes closed so the boy's eyes stop making him so dizzy. "Fine," he says, but he doesn't move.

"You're not going," Harry states, and it's weird, it's so weird. They're both still leaning with their foreheads against the door, and Louis isn't drunk enough for this to be not weird.

He shakes his head, rolling his forehead against the wood. "No," he agrees. "I'm not."

He doesn’t know why he isn’t, why he doesn’t just turn around and walk away, back down the stairs or to some other room where things are quiet and he can be alone, but the rapid-fire beat of his heart has finally disappeared and that’s nice. That’s so, _so_ nice.

Harry pushes himself off the door suddenly, and when Louis looks back he's grinning like he has a secret. "Good," Cripsin says, and then he's digging around in his pocket for something, making a weird face with scrunchy eyes and a crinkly nose. "Because I," he finishes, holding up a set of car keys, "have a key."

House keys then. Like, keys to rooms. To this room, probably. Because like, Harry owns this house. He's a slow-talking rich kid and he owns this entire bloody house. Louis hates him.

"I hate you," he says out loud. He doesn't even mean to, is the thing. It just sort of comes out. 

Harry only laughs, apparently over the whole insecure, pouty bit he was playing at earlier. "Rude," he says, but then he's squeezing past Louis and fitting a key into the lock there, so Louis keeps his mouth shut.

He's got really nice hands, Louis notices, looking down. They're big, and a few of the veins bulge out as he fiddles around with the key, and they're very nice as far as veins go. His fingers are long and elegant, his nails—what is that, glitter blue? That's, that's nice. Louis likes a boy with nice fingernails. He doesn't like Harry though. Nope. Nopety nope. And okay, so maybe those drinks are getting to him a bit, because since when does he use phrases like _nopety nope_? Since never, that's when.

"Your voice is annoying," Louis says, his mouth opening and the words spilling out without him really meaning them to, again.

Harry is still laughing from when Louis said he hated him. "Most people like it," is all he says, fingers still deftly working the lock. He definitely isn’t leaving Louis alone then, which means his stomach needs to get used to the spinny thing it’s got going on every time Harry says something. His voice sounds casual, but when Louis looks up at him his eyes are all sparkle, like he's winking without actually winking. Which is also annoying.

The door in front of them opens and the light spills out all around, almost heavy, like he can feel it seeping through his skin and into his bones and warming him from the inside. Heavy like lying out in the sun on a hot day, like sinking down slowly into a warm tub of water. Heavy like dying stars, like ashes after a fire, like air right before a storm. And yeah, he's dramatic when he drinks but it's just the writer in him, and fuck if those things aren't exactly the way he feels right now. It takes him a moment to realize that they're both just standing there, taking it in. Whatever it is. What is it?

"What is it?" he asks, because his brain-to-mouth filter is slow, slower than Harry's voice, slower than the light, billowing around him.

He's underwater, there's cotton in his ears.

Harry steps past him into the room, brushing shoulders with him, and it's warm, warmer than it should be, warmer than his sofa back home. It's like being touched by a summer.

"S'my art studio," he's telling Louis, looking back over his shoulder, his entire body edged in golden light, like he's some kind of angel leading Louis into heaven.

Louis takes a step into the room and looks around.

And wow, yeah, now Louis feels stupid for that artist comment he made back in the restroom, because this kid is seriously talented. The room is filled with canvases, some blank and some covered in bright paints, scenes like mountains, like sunflowers and rivers and vines, scenes like ballerinas and ballrooms, planets and the stars. In the middle of it is a rug, a red one with grooves, circles within circles, like those planets in their orbits going around and around, and Louis wants to fall face first on it and sleep.

Outside, the world is white and winter, but inside it's all liquid gold.

Louis finds his feet wandering toward a specific painting, one that looks more like a blob than anything else, a big blob of green and pink and yellow. Like a flower.

"It's a sunrise," the Harry tells him, his voice carrying to him over waves of light, sounding insufferably proud.

Louis ought to do something about that.

"That's dumb," he says, and maybe he's a little bit sharper than usual because he's had a bit to drink, but he thinks it gets the point across. "It doesn't look like a sunrise."

He sees the boy open his mouth, probably to defend his precious painting, and no, there's nothing to defend here, and he'll be better off as soon as he realizes that. Louis can help him realize that. "At all," he persists, emphasis on the all. "It doesn't look like a sunrise at _all_." 

When he turns around, curly-haired boy is just smiling at him, his head tilted a bit to the side and his mop of curls almost covering his eyes. He shrugs, like Louis' comment doesn't bother him in the least, and then his smile grows wider. "Did you just want to come in here to criticize my paintings?"

 _Yesssss,_  Louis thinks. That's exactly what he wants to do. He pretends to think about it for a moment, hands in his jacket pockets, and then spins around to face the boy. "Yup," he tells him, giving him his most shit-eating grin before turning to the next painting. "This one," he starts, and he can't figure out what it is for the life of him. Modern art these days. Sheesh. "I don't even know, man. You should really stick with realism. The pres, persect, perspice—"

"Perspective," Harry helps. He's tall, Louis notes, for probably the tenth time, tall and wearing these tight jeans that make him look even taller.

"Yes,  _perspective,_ " Louis tastes the word. "The perspective isn't right."

"You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?" Behind him, Harry's voice is deep and amused, and it's getting closer too. When Louis turns around, he's standing right there next to him, blinking down at him with these big, green-grey eyes. Louis isn't sure he likes this kid, isn't sure he likes him at all.

He swallows, then shrugs like this isn't affecting him in the slightest. "I just like the real-looking ones better, alright. Hold it against me."

For a second it seems like the boy has something witty to say at the tip of his tongue, but then he lets out a long sigh, running a hand through his messy hair. "Yeah, me too, actually. They're harder to paint too, like, I feel like I've done hard work after I finish them. It's nice."

And God, Louis thinks, what is wrong with this kid? Hard work? Who genuinely enjoys hard work? He must be a joke, like a weird early Christmas joke someone sent to Louis to torture him. That's definitely what he is. Probably.

"I need a smoke," he decides, turning abruptly toward the sliding glass doors at the other end of the room. It’s less about him actually wanting one though and more about making a dramatic exit to prove to Harry how much he can’t stand people who admit to enjoying work. What a bloody ridiculous thing to say. He tugs at the handle on the door.

The cold hits him like a knife in the dark.

"Fuck, fucking hell," he stumbles back into the room, fingers numb on the handle as he shoves the door closed. He hears a loud gawking noise from behind him, and when he turns around, Harry has a hand clapped over his mouth, eyes squinting with laughter. There's snow in Louis’ hair, on his cheeks and nose and eyelashes, and there's no way he's going to get to have his smoke now.

It's annoying, but he's starting to feel alright without it. 

Still, he narrows his eyes at Harry, because the kid is laughing at his suffering and he absolutely cannot let him get away with it. "Warn a guy, yeah?" he bites, teeth shaking in his mouth. 

Harry moves toward him. "M'sorry," he grins, and Christ, he's looking at Louis like he wants to eat him or something, with laughter lines brimming at the corner of his eyes. "Didn't actually expect you to try and go out there." He laughs again, deep and loud, his long body shaking like a feather. "Sorry, I just—I could warm you up," he offers, grin splitting his face like the daybreak, "If you like. Just, like, I could put you under my coat." He holds out one of the sides of his unbuttoned coat, like he expects Louis to just duck his head under there or something.

That is  _so_  weird. People don't say things like that, not ever. It's also a bit funny though, makes Louis laugh a little, sticking his hands back into his pockets, makes him say, "Don't think I'd fit, man. That coat's a bit tight."

Harry looks down at his chest, eyebrows furrowing like he's seriously considering it. He looks back up to Louis, then to his chest, then back to Louis again. He shrugs. "We could try anyway." 

Louis hates the way he's smiling at him, like he knows things, all curly hair and mouth wine red. 

"You're a real peace of work, man," he laughs. He keeps his hands in his pockets as he walks past the boy, circles him once and then twice, looking him up and down just to make him uncomfortable, before stopping right in the middle of his rug, and it's like he's the center of the universe, everything spinning out around him. "How can you even afford this place anyway?"

Harry doesn't seem the least bit uncomfortable though, just smiling at Louis like he loves being the center of his attention, eyes all wide and gold-flecked green. He looks like a bean stalk sanding there, like an asparagus with that curly head of hair.

"I, um," he says, looking down and scratching the back of his neck. "I'm sort of a pretty good artist. After I graduated I sold some of my paintings and they just, they were a hit I guess."

Louis’ pretty sure what he's saying is a bit of an understatement. He must be amazing, to afford a house like this, to afford to throw parties in a house like this. And it's interesting, because Louis had expected him to be some rich kid from a well-to-do family who just inherited all his money, but instead he worked for it, he made it all on his own. And that's. Louis’ sort of envious of that. It's what he's been wanting to do with his writing for ages, and what he's been trying to do for the past two years since finishing his undergrad degree, but ever since graduating and not being able to find any job better than working at a Waitrose, he hasn't been able to write anything good, to do anything good at all. His parents had been disappointed in him, probably still are, and although he’s learned to live with that, it’s still hard, watching his life spiral in the opposite direction he had intended.

He doesn't like thinking about it. 

He brushes some of the snow off of his hair, off of his face, ducking his head down. "That's a bit impressive, Curly." The boy quirks an eyebrow at the nickname—from beneath his fringe, Louis thinks he even sees him blush. "Where'd you learn to," he purses his lips, searching for the word, "to  _art_  like this?"

And he is blushing now, pale cheeks turned pink like spring. 

"I just," he starts. "I've just been doing it my whole life, I guess. Like, it's a part of me, you know?" Louis does know. He feels that way about his writing, like there are words swimming in his veins itching to be let out. "I've also got a, um, a photographic memory of a sort. So I can just kind of close my eyes after looking at a scene and save it in my head."

Louis whistles, bouncing a little on his toes. It's a very springy carpet. "That's sick, man." It is. It's one of the coolest things that Louis has heard all evening, maybe all his life. "It's like a superpower, yeah?"

Harry laughs, shaking some of his hair into his eyes and then sweeping it to one side. "Not really, I don't think." He shrugs. "It's just like, a gift or something."

"That's what superpowers are, dear," Louis tells him.

Harry takes a step closer to him. He shrugs, blush gone from his face, and wow, alright, when did Louis start losing the upper hand? "Okay," Harry says. "I'll be a superhero."

"Good." Louis nods, and he's about to say something else, something dumb about Harry having all these responsibilities now that he's a superhero, but Harry says, "I'll be your superhero," and grins at Louis with the brightest smile he's shown all evening.

It's Louis’ turn to blush then. He doesn't even mean to—doesn't  _want_  to—but this fucking kid is so shameless and strange it's doing funny things to Louis’ brain.

"I don't need a superhero," he says, and he hears the way his voice comes out quieter, without any force behind it at all, which isn't good at  _all_  because he's supposed to be stubborn—stubborn and loud and self-reliant and definitely not in need of a superhero. 

Harry shakes his head, his big green eyes watching Louis’ carefully. "Everyone needs a superhero, Lou." And woah, okay, so the nicknaming is a two-way thing now. That's cool. Harry’s toying with the sleeve of Louis’ shirt now, and oh yeah, right. Superheroes. Batman. Whatever. "Even superheroes need superheroes."

"I don't think they do," Louis says, determinedly ignoring the way Harry’s fingers brush over his warm skin. He’s careful to make his voice sound stronger this time, more reckless.

"If you say so," Harry agrees, dropping his hand away, and it's much too easily for Louis’ liking. Makes him suspicious. People don’t normal _agree_ with him when he’s being stubborn just for the heck of it, and the way Harry’s doing it makes it seem like he really doesn’t agree with him at all and he’s only humoring Louis. Like he’s some kind of child that needs to be humored. It’s ridiculous. He doesn't say anything about it though, only stands in the middle of the red rug and stares Harry down, trying to go over everything he knows about this boy in his head.

There isn't much.

He's an artist, he talks slowly, he's a bit shameless.

"What's your name?" He knows what Harry's name is, obviously, but he wants to hear him tell him, and he wants to know the boy's last name too, so he can Google him or Facebook stalk him later or something.

He would do it now, only his phone is in his jacket pocket, and his jacket is lost somewhere in the mess downstairs. He really hopes some confused kid with too much to drink doesn't take it home on accident. 

Harry tilts his head to the side, blinks, says, "Harry. You?"

"Louis Tomlinson. What's your last name?"

Harry takes another step closer to Louis, and Louis has to tilt his head up an inch or so to meet his eyes. "Styles," he says, all slow and deep and almost careful. He's so careful with words. Louis likes that. He likes to think of himself sometimes as a protector of words, of someone who doesn't necessarily create them but instead finds them whenever they want to be found and then keeps them safe. He's viciously protective of them, even more so than he is of his friends sometimes, loves the way they look on a page, the way they sound in the air all around him. And Harry isn't the first; he has a longstanding habit of judging people for their voices. It's probably bad. But maybe that was why this Harry kid had bothered him so much at first—he had seemed bored with words, made them all sound dull and lifeless and cumbersome, but now that Louis listens to him up close, now that he's standing here really listening to him, he realizes that the boy is just careful with words. That he cares about them enough to take his time with them, to make sure they come out in the right order and sounding the way he wants, to make sure he doesn't put words into the world that don't want to be there.

And that . . . that's a bit beautiful, even if Louis will never admit it. He's never been able to do that himself, mouth always spilling word after word, sentence after sentence, without taking much time to think about it. It's almost—

What the  _fuck_  did he just say his last name was?

Louis coughs, feeling his mouth turning up at the edges. "Styles?" he repeats. "You're name is actually Styles? You mean someone literally had the last name of Styles and then had a kid and was all 'oh I know let's name him Harry so he can be made fun of twice as much growing up.' Because those are two pretty ridiculous names, if you ask me. And you should. I'm very clever."

Harry's pouting by the time he's finished, but it isn't the kind of real-life pout Louis would worry about. It's over-exaggerated, his puffy bottom lip sticking out way too far and his forehead all crinkled. It reminds Louis of earlier, in the bathroom. "That someone was my mum, you know. And she liked the name."

For some reason, even though he knows it's at least partly feigned, Louis feels the need to mollify him, the need to mock whooshing out of him in a single breath. He lays a hand on his arm, running up and down over the sleeve of his coat and feeling the way the muscles tense momentarily beneath his touch. He can’t help but think how young Harry looks, how—despite how dressed up he is, how proper and careful he holds himself—there’s something so childlike in his eyes, in his smile, in the way he laughs so easily. "I'm sure she did, sweetheart," he soothes.

Harry smiles then, face toward the ground like he's trying to hide it. "It is a bit ridiculous, isn't it?" he giggles, finally looking up, bottom lip still stuck between his teeth.

Louis reaches out with his thumb to free it before he even knows what he's doing. And that—fuck, how is he supposed to recover from that? "Yup," he agrees, drawing his hand away like nothing happened until both of his hands are safely back in his pockets where they belong.

This whole night is ridiculous.

Harry takes a step closer— _another step_ , for Christ's sake. Louis would be backing up into a wall or something if this was a movie, and if he wasn't absolutely resolute in never taking a single step off of this fluffy rug for the rest of his life.

He can feel Harry's breath on his shoulder when he dips into his space. "Wanna dance?" he's asking, and right. This is a party, one where people meet and dance and do things. Things not like hiding away in other people's art studio's and drooling over their rugs. Still, he asks, "Down there?"

Harry laughs and Louis wonders how he can do that, how he can be molasses and strawberries at the same time.

He's shaking his head against Louis’ shoulder, rolling it back and forth there like Louis had done against the wooden paneling on the door outside, only there's a smile pressed into his collarbone this time, a fuzzy tickle of hair on his cheek. "Uh uh," he answers. "Up here." And for a second Louis thinks he's messing with him, making fun of him for asking such a stupid question.

But then his hands brush his hips, his smile on Louis’ skin disappears, and he's pulling back enough to watch Louis’ face, to gauge his reaction.

"You're dumb," Louis says, because if the blush on his face is planning on giving him away then his mouth is going to have to work to make up for it. It still comes out so much softer than he was hoping for. "I don't want to dance with you."

It's probably a lie. Louis adds it to the list of things he isn't going to think about. 

The wind outside whistles, high and clear and long, as Harry leans back in and rests his head against Louis’ shoulder, his whole body curling to fit there, to make himself smaller. "Okay," he submits, but it isn't submitting at all. It sounds more like "whatever you say," like "if you say so," like something that is the opposite of what it really means, with the way the word is built on a smile and his feet start taking small steps on the rug. It doesn't take long for Louis to follow.

And it's the strangest thing, slow dancing upstairs alone in the light while there are people crowding the floor downstairs. Louis can see it all perfectly—though not as perfectly as Harry would if he were to think about it—the way they're hiding in the dark spaces between twinkly Christmas lights and the blue from iPhone screens, the floor shaking at every bass note, alcohol spilling over shoes. It's a different kind of dance down there, he knows, ragged and buzzing and not at all like this, like this quiet, warm thing that has his feet moving only in tiny increments.

He  _likes_  it, is the thing. He likes it and he wants it to last forever, wants to live in a world where all he has to do to be enough is hold this gangly boy amid a hundred neon paintings and laugh at the way this reckless planet spins.

He doesn't even know him, but he wants to. He wants—

 _God,_  he thinks, looking up, letting Harry's warm breath puff against his neck.  _God, I want so many things._

 

* * *

 

There’s a soft knocking on the half-open door to the studio, a blurry shadow in the corner of Louis’ eye. He feels too lovely to move, hands playing lazily with the hair at the nape of Harry’s neck, head against his shoulder, whole body languid and underwater and sleepy. He doesn’t know how long they’ve been standing here wordless, swaying slightly together under the soft light, but he’s tired now, and it isn’t the kind of bone-dead exhaustion that catches up with him eventually and forces him to sleep. It’s a gentle tiredness he hasn’t felt in ages, one that’s warm and hazy and  _so good_  he can’t imagine why he doesn’t spend more of his life looking for ways to get to it. It’s immobilizing; his eyes are heavy with it.

He doesn’t really know when he decided this was okay, but he likes it, likes this soft dance they've perfected, ankles brushing together every now and again as their feet shuffle across the carpet. He likes the way Harry's hands feel against his body—firm touch, fingers splayed over his rib cage. He likes the small hums Harry makes, warm breath puffing out onto Louis’ neck, like he's got some song playing in his head, and Louis wonders what it is he's secretly dancing with him to, wonders what the lyrics are and if they mean anything to Harry, anything at all. He likes the way the floor shakes in small waves beneath their shoes whenever the bass drops downstairs, the way Harry presses himself closer, the way —when Louis closes his eyes—all he can see is the snow spinning away amidst the light, his head a woven tapestry of white and gold, white and gold, white and gold, green eyes blinking in the midst of it. 

When the second knock comes it’s only slightly louder, but Louis still finds himself jumping back instinctively, away from Harry’s body just in case the boy doesn’t want to be seen with Louis sleeping all over his shoulder or whatever was just going on there. Harry’s hands stay at his waist though instead of falling away, and when he turns his head to squint at the figure in the doorway he only grips tighter, keeping Louis close.

Louis doesn’t know the girl in the doorway, hopes to God it isn’t Harry’s girlfriend or something and he hasn’t just screwed so many things up. She’s tall and thin, sort of pirate-y looking with dark hair and combat boots and an earring in her left ear. She might even seem a bit intimidating if it weren’t for the softness of her eyes and the way she’s smiling at the both of them, shoulder resting against the doorframe and hand raised from knocking. So. Most likely not a girlfriend then. Not that it matters much. But.

“Knock knock,” the girl says, her voice smooth and even and higher than Louis’, though less raspy.

As soon as Harry turns to look at her, he turns right back around and hides his face in Louis’ shoulder. “Go away, Shanie,” he groans, the sound of it doing things to Louis’ stomach. “You’re a menace to society.”

Pirate-girl laughs. “ _Society_  is actually all outside waiting for you to set those fireworks you promised off. And I hate to disturb you, lads,”—Louis’ pretty sure there’s an eyebrow raise directed at Harry somewhere in there—“but it’s almost half-past eleven and we can’t do them after midnight.” She sounds smart, Louis thinks, sounds well-read but in that quiet sort of way that’s hard to find. He thinks he probably knows why Harry is friends with her.

Harry looks at her finally, sticks his tongue out, and Louis can’t help but find it mildly endearing. “Go away, menace. Or m’gonna shoot the messenger.”

Pirate-girl just raises an eyebrow, again. “I don’t even want fireworks, mate. I just lost a bet and had to come up here. But I would set those things off soon before the crowd downstairs starts waving pitchforks around. Seriously, H, your friends are scary.”

“You invited half of them,” Harry mumbles, but pirate girl is gone, her light footsteps growing lighter as she descends the stairwell. 

They stand there for a moment without really doing anything, and Louis feels sadness begin to well in his chest at the thought of leaving, of this boy going off to his friends and his fireworks and Louis going back alone to his cold flat. And that’s—huh. That’s different. Immediately though, he pushes the feeling down, knowing that this was never supposed to be a permanent thing, just a suspended moment in time meant to cure boredom on a chilly evening. Or something like that. He still can’t help himself from running his hands through Harry’s hair, pushing the curls back and making the boy look at him. “So,” he says. “Fireworks.”

Harry nods happily, hands still at Louis’ hips. “Shanie and I prepared a whole show. Not like huge ones or anything ‘cause we weren’t sure if we could use those but, like, they’re all hooked up to my computer and stuff and I can set them off with my phone. S’really cool.”

“Sounds awesome,” Louis agrees, mouth curving up at the corners. “You’d best get to it then, yeah?” He doesn’t want to let go of this boy, or maybe it’s this moment, but fireworks do sound nice, he thinks. They sound  _alive._

“I have to go outside though, and it’s cooold,” Harry whines, looking unbearably sad.

Louis chuckles. “I’m sure you’ll manage,” he tells him, booping him once on the nose. He thinks he’s starting to get over it, the fact that he’s just going to keep doing abnormal things around this boy. Like booping. He isn’t a booper, okay? Under normal conditions, he doesn’t boop.

These are so not normal conditions.

Suddenly, Harry is grinning, eyes wide and green and gold, all childlike sincerity. “Come with me?” he asks, and yeah, Louis thinks. He can do that. Under any conditions, he can do that.

 

* * *

 

They tumble out the front door into the snow, and it’s softer now, but still falling, piling up in all the corners.

“This is so stupid!” Louis shouts at the top of his lungs, ducking against the cold, the hood of the red jacket Harry had insisted he borrow making everything apart from his own breathing increasingly hard to hear. The wind has died down for the most part, but it’s still chilly and wet outside, their feet slipping on the pavement every now and again. He’s breathless when Harry looks at him though, eyes sparkling like he’s got _the_ most important secret hidden away somewhere, his hair a soppy mess atop his head—and he’s grinning, all white teeth.

Harry nearly topples over laughing before cupping his hands to his mouth and tipping his head back, mouth full of giggles. “Louis Tomlinson is the stupidest boy alive!”

“Oi!” Louis stumbles into him, half on purpose and half slipping on the sidewalk. He covers Harry’s mouth with his hand, with the sleeve of the jacket that’s much too big on him. “Keep it quiet, will ya?” he chides, trying to look as serious as he possibly can while also looking decidedly like a marshmallow. “I’ve got a reputation to uphold, you know.”

Louis can feel his grin beneath his hand, knows it’s coming before the boy sticks his tongue out, licking at the material of his jacket sleeve. He groans, rubbing his hand across Harry’s face. “That’s disgusting, man.”

Harry is still smiling, looking like a piece of the winter with his soft eyes and rosy cheeks, with his snow-white skin. “You’re disgusting,” he returns, and then giggles, light and bubbly, and Louis wants to throw himself face down in the snow and stay there. He wants to melt when the sun comes up again.

Instead, he rolls his eyes, pushing at Harry’s chest to get the giant boy away from him. “That’s the worst comeback I’ve ever heard. I’m genuinely disappointed in you, Curly.”

Harry only laughs. “Whatever,” he says, word caught on a smile. He tugs at Louis’ arm. “C’mon. I wanna be in a good spot to see the fireworks.”

Louis keeps a few steps behind Harry on the snow-drowned sidewalk, watching him stumble on slow, wobbling legs. He looks like a stroke of paint, Louis thinks, against the pale winter palette, or maybe a smudge of a Pink Sherbert Crayola crayon, hair frizzing and coat fluttering and snow dusting his back and shoulders, blurring all his edges. He’s moving with a sort of clumsy grace, like he’s used to the way his limbs don’t cooperate and has learned to just go with it, and it makes Louis’ mouth turn up at the corners even when he tries to tamp back his smile.

“You coming?” Harry’s grin is slow and wide, head cocked curiously to the side, and Louis realizes too late that he’s been staring. “You don’t have to. You can just, like, stand there and watch me walk away. Some say it’s an even better view than fireworks.” He takes a couple steps further away from Louis, walking backward, sashaying his narrow hips as if to prove his point. It’s the most ridiculous thing Louis has ever seen.

He rolls his eyes, smiling and shaking his head, but then he wiggles his hands into the pockets of the coat Harry gave him and jogs the several steps necessary to catch up. He’s standing right in front of him now, and it’s slightly annoying the way he has to tip his head back to meet Harry’s eyes. It’s too close, _they’re_ too close, and Louis feels startlingly sober all of a sudden because his brain is telling him to reach out and touch and instead of doing that, he’s just standing here, breathing heavy out into the air. In his defense, it’s the first time in months he’s let himself have a night out, usually either forcing himself to work on his writing or staying curled up on his tiny sofa dreading the conversations he’ll have to have with people, and so this _thing_ the two of them are dancing around is still a bit foreign to him. It’s like he’s relearning a language he once knew how to speak so well. He feels Harry’s long fingers wrap around his wrist, tugging him lightly forward.

“I think I’ll be judge of that,” Louis says, with a shrug of pretend aloofness. His voice is raspy though, syllables catching in his throat. When Harry doesn’t respond, keeps standing there with a goofy smile and his hand around Louis’ wrist, Louis clears his throat. “Well, come on then, Curly. I believe I was promised fireworks. Can’t rightly make a decision without all the information, now, can I?”

Harry lets go of his wrist then, turning around with a groan and a dramatic flourish that Louis finds respectable, being as well-versed in theatrics as he is. Because part of being good with words means that he’s good at lying, at storytelling. There are times when his friends will ask him what he’d done on one particular afternoon, and instead of trying to remember the details, he’ll just make up some story, complete with specific times and places and the colors of whatever clothes he had decided—or pretended to decide—to wear that day. He honestly has no idea why he does it. The words just come out sometimes, tumbling over one another until he’s weaving this grand tale about getting off the Tube at the wrong platform and running into Emma Watson. It’s a quirk, probably.

“You’re killing me,” Harry says then, and Louis is drawn back to the present, Tubes and t-shirts and Emma Watson spinning away with the snow flurries.

“I am?” he asks, blinking, confused.

Harry only shakes his head, wearing that same smirk he’s had on all night, the one that says, _I know something you don’t know,_ and then turns away, continuing down the trodden path of snow and leaves leading around the house.

“You’ve no idea,” he calls over his shoulder, and Louis—he just. He really, really doesn’t. Has absolutely no idea what this boy with his molasses-y voice and green eyes and hair tangled from the wind wants from him. He has no idea who he is.

Shaking his head for what seems like the hundredth time, Louis follows his retreating figure around the house, coming to a stop where a wall separates the backyard from the driveway.

Apparently the fireworks are somewhere in the backyard. Harry had told him on their way down the stairs how long it had taken for him and Shanie to set them up and waterproof each of them, and then how they’d coordinated the entire show, arranging it so that the fireworks all went off in a certain order, in time with a series of three songs they had chosen. He’s weirdly excited for it, more excited than he’s been for . . . well, for  _anything_  in a long time, and he doesn’t mind it, honestly. It’s a nice feeling. Even if it won't last forever, it's nice.

Harry clambers up onto the wall, his long legs kicking out behind him, and Louis can’t help but chuckle at how absurd it looks—how strange it is to see Harry all dressed up and still scrambling to climb a wall like a little boy climbing a tree during recess. Once he settles, he turns, reaching down to offer a hand to Louis, and Louis really would like to refuse it and just climb the wall on his own, because he is a strong, independent man, truly, but he honestly doesn’t think he can manage getting up there on his own. It’s a high wall, and he’s not—he’s not  _short_ , per say, but he’s not exactly tall either.

Harry lights up like a Christmas tree when Louis takes his hand, helping pull him up and onto the wall until they’re both sitting there, half out of breath and leaning into each other’s space.

“My bum is cold,” Harry says at last, voice loud in the air around them, and Louis laughs. It’s the most he’s laughed in a long, long time, he realizes, not even caring when Harry wiggles around a little and not-so-subtly scoots closer to him until their thighs are touching, their ankles knocking together as they dangle off the wall. There's a tear in Harry's jeans, Louis notices, just above the knee. He pokes his finger into it, laughing when Harry jumps and squeaks. 

"S'cold," he mumbles, shaking his head and looking down, but Louis doesn't miss the way he blushes, the way his cheeks flood with heat even as he complains about the cold.

Louis laughs. "They're ripped," he says, although he doesn't know why he says it. They both know his jeans have ripped, they're both looking at the tear right now, but his mouth just spits the words out anyway, wanting to say something, anything, if it will get Harry to say something in return. He just wants to keep talking to this boy, to keep hearing his sleep-slow voice, like mulled apple cider in the dead of winter. It's a long way from where he was an hour and a half ago, sitting alone on a counter and trying to think of how many plastic cups he could throw at the boy's head before it became rude.

One. If he's learned anything over the past few years, it's that the answer to that question is always one.

Harry sticks his bottom lip out, doing that pouting thing again, and pinches it between his thumb and pointer finger. He looks over at Louis and then back to the hole in his jeans. “We match now, yeah?”

Louis blinks, not sure what he’s talking about, but then he remembers how his own jeans are ripped at the knees and he understands. “Guess we do, yeah,” he agrees, bumping shoulders with Harry, and the way Harry smiles at him makes his chest feel warm and heavy, like he’s settling down into a hot bath, his whole world slowing until it’s completely still, all the threads unwound.

“Why do you paint?” he asks, because suddenly he has to know something more about this boy than his profession, has to know what he loves and why he loves it and, just, everything. He wants to know everything. It’s the way he’s always been with his friends—even when they don’t tell him outright, he always learns everything there is to know about them, so that he knows how to be there for them and sappy shit like that. Every new person he meets is like a new book, lying on a desk and opened to page one, just waiting for Louis to _read,_ to figure out its secrets and its nuances and its quirks, its unique voice and temperament.

He probably shouldn’t be thinking about cute boys lying on desks—lying open on desks for that matter—but oh well.

He hasn’t wanted to get to know someone new in _ages_. He hasn’t cared in ages.

Next to him, Harry shrugs, his shoulders moving up and down beneath the fabric of his coat. “I love it a lot,” he explains. “And I’m not . . . I’m not very good at, like, expressing myself? With words and what not.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “You just talked people’s ears off in that kitchen for a good hour, man. I think you’re alright at it.” He hopes Harry doesn’t catch on to the fact that Louis had been practically eavesdropping the entire time he had been talking. That would be mildly embarrassing.

“I’m not though,” Harry says, and whew, close call. The way he says the words makes it seem like something he’s resigned himself to a long time ago, and that irks Louis. “I mean, sure, I’m good with people, I’m good at being _entertaining,_ but that’s not, like, it isn’t important things.”

And okay, Louis thinks. Maybe he can understand that. Still. “I think you’re better at it then you think you are,” he says, offering a small smile.

Harry returns it but doesn’t say anything. After a moment, he asks, “What about you? Do you, like, do things?”

Louis can’t stop himself from laughing at the phrasing, and Harry immediately covers his face with his hands, a light blush creeping onto his cheeks, visible through the gaps between his fingers. “See, I told you,” he groans, but it sounds more playful than embarrassed. “My words, they just—I don’t know, they never make sense!”

“You’re ridiculous.” Louis wipes a tear from the corner of his eye with his thumb, because apparently Harry is funny enough to make him laugh until he cries. “But yeah, I write. Inspiration’s been a _bit_ hard to come by lately but yes, generally, that is a thing that I do.”

Harry peeks through his hands, blinking, large eyes and pale, flushed skin, before uncovering his face entirely. “That’s really amazing.”

It isn’t, but if Harry wants to think that then Louis is certainly not going to be modest about it. He thinks about the reason that Harry paints, to express himself, to say things he doesn’t know how to say out loud, and he’s not sure he writes for that same reason. It’s more about organization to him, taking the chaotic thoughts in his head and putting them down on paper in a way that reconciles them all. When there are parts of his life that he can’t figure out, or feelings he can’t quite pinpoint, it helps him to create stories about them and to write those stories through to their conclusions. He remembers reading somewhere about the middle ages, and about how people during those times were intense categorizers, how—because they trusted books and _auctors_ so unconditionally, and because so many of the things those _auctors_ had to say about the world were seemingly contradictory—they had to find a way to reconcile all of those contradictions. Instead of just disregarding certain texts, they had to formulate an entire worldview in which all the books by all the authors _in all the genres_ , no matter how disparate, made sense as a whole. He thinks about that a lot, because the worldview they came up with and the process behind it is rather impressive, even if they did get a quite a bit wrong in the end.

That’s sort of what he does with his writing, in a way. Uses it as a means to solve puzzles. It’s a weird sort of closure, he supposes.

He wants to say all that out loud, but he doesn’t, choosing instead to watch the moon slip behind the clouds and then slowly reappear, sliver by sliver.

Right now, he feels sort of like a bird on a wire, waiting for some storm to come and force him to fly away, to get up and _go_ , to do something—publish that book he’s always wanted to publish or even just leave his flat of his own volition for something other than work.

He wants to be the storm. Or not really. Maybe he wants someone else to be the storm. Maybe he wants to not need a storm at all.

"Can I kiss you?"

Louis starts at that, because non-sequitur much. He was talking about his writing and then he was thinking about birds and storms, and although he’s fairly certain he could relate those things to kissing with only a few degrees of separation, that’s only because he’s extremely talented and not because they actually have any commonly-known relationship. And maybe Louis was wrong when he thought earlier that Harry was careful with his words because _Jesus_ , the things this kid says, no forewarning or anything, are unbelievable. He shifts on the wall, sliding his hands back into the jacket pockets and looking down, willing the blush out of his cheeks.

"Definitely not,” he says, but the blush doesn’t go away and neither does the smile on his face, and so he turns his head away from Harry, biting down on his lip to keep from saying anything he’ll regret later. He sneaks a look over his shoulder at Harry, sees the boy scoot even closer to him. He’s absurd, absolutely shameless, this one.

"How come?” Harry whines, drawing out all the vowel sounds, and Louis feels his chin on his shoulder, would probably feel his breath on his neck too if it weren’t for this bloody jacket. “You look like you need to be kissed."

At that, Louis turns around, just in time to see the grin on Harry’s face bloom fully, cheeks dimpling at he sits up, body turned toward Louis.

Louis kicks his feet against the wall, dislodging clumps of snow and sending them tumbling toward the ground. He lets his head fall backward, eyes crinkling with laughter. "What does that even  _mean_?"

"It means,” Harry says, “that your mouth wants my mouth to touch it."

Louis can’t help the laugh that bubbles out of him then, ringing through the air. He rolls his eyes. Harry is so weird. "You are so _weird_."

Harry shrugs. "S'not me, it's my mouth."

And that. Louis doesn’t even know what to say to that, so he goes with, "Just set your fireworks off already before we both freeze to death out here.”

"If I set them off, will you kiss me?"

"Nope."

"Lou. Please?" Harry’s voice has shifted to a high whine, which Louis didn’t even know it was capable of, would have betted against it actually, if that was, like, a thing people bet on. His head is spinning and he isn’t even drunk anymore.

"Why do you want to kiss me so badly?" The words leave his mouth before he has time to think about them, to think about whether or not he even wants an answer. He’s a proper mess right now, working a minimum wage job and living alone in a shitty, one-bedroom flat that he probably won’t be able to afford anymore come next year. It isn’t exactly the kind of life he’d invite someone else into, and he doesn’t do one night stands anymore, not after years of dissatisfaction and growing attached to people who couldn’t care less about him. Call him clingy, but he doesn’t want someone he’s going to have to let go of. The thought actually scares him, these days.

"Because you're soft, and pretty."

And woah, Louis must have zoned out again.

“I . . . what?” he asks.

“You’re soft, and, like, pretty,” Harry repeats, but this time it’s quieter, and when Louis peeks a look at him, his face is flushed a beautiful rose pink.

Still, he scoffs, kicking his foot sideways at Harry’s. "I'm ruggedly handsome is what I am,” he asserts, puffing his chest up and sitting as tall as he can. “And don't you forget it."

He is ruggedly handsome. It’s one of the qualities he’s most proud of. He wants to scoff. Soft and pretty. Yeah right.

Harry bites down on his bottom lip, shaking his head and grinning like it’s the hardest thing in the world not to. "Alright." And he's doing that thing again, where he just _agrees_ with whatever Louis is saying without actually sounding like he’s agreeing with him at all. After a moment, he adds, "Don't you want to kiss me?"

And yeah, well, maybe. But.

"I want a lot of things, Harry, but that doesn't mean I'm going to get all of them."

Harry shakes his head. "But I'm  _giving_  you this."

And. "Fuck." He can’t just _say_ things like that. It isn’t fair.

"What?"

"Nothing,” Louis hurries. “Just . . . just set the fireworks off and let's go inside. I'm cold."

Harry seems to have caught on to Louis’ momentary panic though, because he’s raising his eyebrows at him beneath messy locks of hair, eyes bright and lips bitten red. God, but Louis _does_ want to kiss him.

"S'just a kiss, Louis,” Harry says, and when Louis stays resolutely silent, he shrugs his shoulders. "Alright, fine. But I know you want to."

And man, Louis thinks, this kid is something else. It’s taking a great deal of will power to ignore him. Good thing Louis has lots of it.

In front of them, and a bit to their right, a crowd of people mill about, some who Louis recognizes and some he’s never seen before in his life, laughing and talking around the lips of beer bottles and plastic cups, cigarette smoke puffing into the air next to everyone’s winter breaths.

It’s funny, actually. After all the trouble he went through, he doesn’t really feel like a cigarette anymore.

The world around them is swirly white, spots of brown bushes or dark gravel poking up through the white here and there. For the most part though, everything is plain and clean, smoothed over by soft sheets of snow, the streetlights casting pools of yellow light onto the snowbanks. The people milling about look happy, clinging to each other’s elbows to keep warm, hoods pulled up and eyes glancing to the sky every now and again, not wanting to miss that first firework. Gently, Louis bounces his heel against the wall and turns to Harry again, leaning closer when he finds the boy bent over his iPhone, tapping away at something Louis assumes is firework-related. Louis can’t stop himself from thinking how, if the boy were to turn his head even the slightest bit they would be breathing each other’s air. He shifts his weight on the wall, pulling one leg up underneath himself and tucking his hands further into the sleeves of the jacket he’s wearing because it really is bloody freezing out.

“You going to impress me yet?” he asks.

Harry’s eyes go dark at that, which sends Louis’ mind reeling in directions it should really stay away from. He nods his head, hair dotted with snowflakes, and then holds his iPhone out to Louis. “Will you do the honors?” he asks, eyes sharp and terribly bright, the earth against the snow.

Ignoring the way his whole body feels like it’s just been lit up, nerves flickering and flaring hot amid the cold, Louis faux-gasps. “I couldn’t possibly.” But he’s already taking the phone from Harry, grinning at him with his most mischievous grin, pretending that he isn’t affected. He looks down at the phone in his hand, and it’s silly, but he suddenly feels like he’s the leader of some heist team or something, about to make the final play call, that last grand, cleverly-organized move that ends the movie and leaves the audience enchanted by his brilliance.

“You just press that right there,” Harry is saying, effectively dissipating Louis’ illusion. Because it’s just one button thingy he presses and that’s it. Whatever. He’s going to press that button awesomely.

He blinks at Harry, raising his eyebrows to ask if he should go for it.

Harry nods again, smile so wide his dimples are craters in his cheeks, and Louis feels that heat spread throughout his body like a slow tide. He presses his pointer finger down on the screen.

It isn’t exactly what he expected.

He expected a slow start at first, one or two firecrackers shooting off into the air, followed by a few more, shattering into thousands of tiny raining lights just as the first song reached its chorus.

Instead, it's like all the fireworks have erupted at once, bursting simultaneously in one blindingly bright moment and then spilling to the earth, leaving behind a sky heavy with grey smoke. There’s a collective gasp from the crowd out front of the house, all eyes squinting at the sky, all heads tipped upward, mouths open in awe. Louis blinks, the explosions still going off behind his eyelids, red and green and blue and white lights tearing across his vision like time-lapse photography of cars on a freeway at night. He waits for the next set of fireworks to appear, listens for that high whistling sound before the explosion. Nothing more happens though, and when he turns to Harry, the boy looks shocked, eyebrows furrowed at the sky and then at the iPhone in Louis’ hands.

"What is it?" Louis asks, handing it over. "Did I do something?"

"No, I think—" Harry takes the phone from him, messing around on it for a moment. "Shit, mate." He turns to look at Louis, an awfully sheepish expression on his face, and Louis knows what he’s going to say before he says it. "I set it up wrong. Fuck. That's it then, they all just, like, went off already." The music is still playing, some song Louis has never heard but sounds a bit jazz-y, and he thinks it hasn't even reached the first chorus yet.

"Hey, I mean, that was kind of beautiful actually," he says, trying to make Harry feel better. Because for some godforsaken reason he can't stand to see the boy sad. "I'm sure people will—"

But Harry is tossing his legs over the wall and jumping down into the backyard, landing awkwardly in the snow with a giggle that makes Louis want to make snow angels with him. It's an unnerving feeling. "Come on," Harry whisper-yells. He makes grabby-hands at Louis to help him down. "If they find me, I'm so dead. Louis, I'm _so_ dead." His eyes are shining with mischief though as Louis acquiesces, letting the boy help him onto the ground. The second his feet hit the floor he feels lips against his forehead. Just a quick, fleeting touch, but it had definitely been there, and the look on Harry's face when Louis narrows his eyes at him only confirms it.

"That's lack of consent, you know," he points out, tucking his arms into his pockets again for warmth. The wind has picked up, and Louis thinks it's probably nearing the middle of the night by now, the sky dark and the stars winking at them through the snowflakes. 

Harry scrunches up his nose. "M'sorry," he says. "You're just, like, right there." He makes a vague gesture toward where Louis is standing, his arm flopping back to the side when he's finished. "S'really hard."

Louis hasn't had anyone look at him like this in ages, is the thing. He knows he isn't hard on the eyes, knows that if he wants to pull all he has to do is go out with his friends one night to some club, but he just doesn't do that too often anymore, doesn't go out, doesn't let himself waste time trying to impress drunk strangers who only want one thing from him. He's picky too, is the other thing. There aren't very many guys out there who are (a) his type, (b) gay, and (c) not boring as hell. Harry though. This boy is something else, and Louis  _wants_  to kiss him—he wants to touch him and kiss him and keep him for as long as he possibly can. He just doesn't think he's at a point in his life right now where that would be a good idea. He's got to  _do something_ —before he can see his parents again, before he can kiss cute boys in the snow and feel like he can properly take care of them. He's got to make something of himself.

He passes Harry in the snowbanks, heading back toward the house. "Well, get used to it then," he says, and he can't help but pinch Harry's side as he does, jumping away reflexively when Harry's hand reaches out to try to pinch him in return.

"Hey, can I show you something?" Harry asks, and Louis pauses mid-step, letting the snow catch on his eyebrows and lashes. "Promise I won't try to kiss you again. Unless, like, you say you want me to."

And okay. Louis can work with that. He nods, biting back a smile.

When Harry reaches for his hand to tug him along, Louis goes willingly.


	2. Paper-Crown Kings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More stuff that happens on a blizzard-y night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO. If you've been reading this already, you'll know that the last chapter was really, really LONG, and so in order to be able to update this story more frequently (yay!), I broke it into two parts and am reposting the second part of chapter one here, as chapter two.
> 
> WHICH MEANS that if you have read chapter one already, while it was at like 30,000 words or something, you have probably already read this.
> 
> Maybe not. But maybe. :P
> 
> Anyway, sorry if that's terribly confusing. Hopefully because of this, I'll be able to update sooner! :)

Louis’ hand is still wrapped up in Harry's by the time they make it through the door, the light snowfall outside having turned into a blizzard all over again, harsh and whistling. It feels eerily similar inside his head, his mind a dizzying flurry of  _can I kiss you, can I kiss you,_ and  _you're_   _soft and pretty,_ repeated each time by a voice he's managed to grow quite fond of in the past couple of hours, not that it's something he will ever admit out loud.

He lets his eyes wander as the door falls shut behind them. The place Harry has brought him to is a house, a small house in the far back of Harry's yard with only one room about the size of Louis’ own and what looks to be a built-in loft covering almost the entire left side, making the ceiling almost twice as low over there. There's are two large windows on the walls to both his right and his left, but the curtains are drawn over both of them, the pink and grey fabric obscuring any outside view. Louis takes a moment to appreciate the fact that Harry has pink curtains before glancing over the rest of the room. It seems like a smaller version of the studio upstairs, paintings leaning against the walls and an easel in one corner, a brown rug in the middle of the room with the same hypnotic pattern of concentric circles, a couch against the left wall, a small lamp in the corner bestowing the room with light. What stands out most to Louis though is how everything here is less ornate, less set-up and fabricated, almost like upstairs was the front—the grand, open room for guests to  _ooh_  and  _ah_  at—and down here is the real thing.

His suspicions are confirmed when Harry squeezes his hand, nodding at the scene in front of them. "So this is, like, where I actually paint stuff."

Louis nods. It feels so much more intimate here than it had upstairs, even though then they were dancing and here they're just standing still, holding hands and trying to keep from shivering. He glances over at Harry, and for the first time since Louis saw him hours ago sitting on the counter in the kitchen, he seems tired. His hair is tied up in a small bun now, emphasizing the sharp cut of his jaw, and his eyes look heavy and dreary, eyelashes casting grey shadows across his cheekbones. He's surveying the room in front of the them with an expression Louis recognizes almost instantly, the one he gets when he's looking over a chapter or a poem he's written and starts to think that it really isn't as good as he thought it was after all. Harry's eyebrows are furrowed, the dim light making his tall figure seem shadowy and otherworldly, like some Gothic prince stepping out of history, his fingers casting elongated shadows on the walls, and Louis can't decide which version of the boy perplexes him more: the clumsy, dimple-faced one who had asked to kiss him on the wall, or this—this thoughtful young man shrouded in a long coat, brooding over his half-finished paintings. 

And then there's that third version, the one that had been the focal point in the kitchen upstairs, somehow managing to hold the attention of a small crowd with nothing but a charming smile and poorly-told jokes, voice slow but something not even Louis had been able to ignore, entertaining and captivating. 

Louis really needs to stop turning people into characters. 

He squeezes Harry's hand. "It's lovely," he whispers, and why is he whispering? He has no idea, honestly. Maybe it's because something about this place feels sacred almost, like walking into one of those old European churches and knowing that there are hundreds of dead bodies buried beneath your feet. Except nothing like that.

Yeah, no, nothing like that at all.

"Wha'?" Harry's voice is low, lower than Louis’ heard it all night.

"I said it's lovely, all of it," Louis repeats. He clears his throat and looks away, making a show of taking in the room for the first time even though he's been bloody staring at it for the past five minutes. 

Harry's answering grin is worth the theatrics. "Thanks," he says, his voice quiet and oh, they're back to whispering now apparently. "I don't know why but I'm more inspired down here, I guess, for some reason. Like, upstairs is just too . . ." He waves a hand around in a vague circling gesture.

"Much," Louis finishes for him, and Harry nods.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Much."

Louis knows how it is. Or, he doesn't really, because he doesn't have the money for a massive writing studio fully equipped with a hundred different kinds of pens and parchment from each of the four bloody corners of the earth, but he gets it, gets how the world can be so overwhelming sometimes that it's nice to have a small place to hide away in, something simple and quiet and without distractions. And he understands what it's like to be on a pedestal—even if his is one built out of expectations rather than observable successes—and to want nothing more than to jump off of it and run away. To just make art, freely. Unrestrained.

It's a dream.

“What’s up there?” he asks, pointing to the loft.

The grin on Harry’s face when he turns to him is enough to knock the breath out of Louis.

“That,” he says, tugging on Louis’ hand to pull him towards the ladder at the far end of the room, “is where I keep _things_.” The way he enunciates the last word makes Louis wonder what sorts of _things_ he’s talking about, but he hardly has time to be concerned with Harry practically dragging him across the room, sidestepping a half-finished canvas and letting go of his hand only to begin the climb up the ladder.

Louis follows, eyes dragging over Harry’s long body in front of him, watching with amusement as his hands fumble with each rung.

“Eyes front, soldier,” Harry says, suddenly, and when Louis raises his gaze he sees that he’s stopped moving, grin thrown over his shoulder. Noises float to them from the party outside, music and soft, bubbly laughter, and Harry’s face is all blue and orange shadows, light from a lamp in the corner washing over his features—his dimples and forehead and the bow of his mouth—and even though Louis very much does want to kiss him, he also can’t help but stand and look, frozen in time and in space, body weighed down by something heavy and all-encompassing that he doesn’t quite understand.

It takes him a good minute to clear his thoughts, before shrugging, saying, “I can look at whatever I want, thank you very much.” And it’s meant to come out teasing but it only comes out soft. Harry blushes and turns his head away. After a moment, his long, angular frame disappears over the top of the ladder, onto the loft.

Louis lets out a breath before following.

“Do you want to smoke?”

Harry is sitting cross-legged in the loft, which is actually more of a bed, like a bunk bed without the bottom bunk, the whole thing carpeted and covered in colorful blankets, a pale forest green sheet draped over his knees and pooling onto the floor around him. It reminds Louis of Greek sculpture, of the clothing, loose and fluid and flowing, like water, rippling softly where it’s draped over a body. There’s a tiny window behind him, giving away nothing but the black and blue of night, and he’s surrounded by confetti and torn Christmas crackers, looking every bit like a small child on Christmas morning. Louis wonders who was up here earlier and what they were doing, if they had been like he and Harry, wanting to hideaway from the cacophony of the party for a little while. Slowly, he crawls toward the taller boy, stopping a few feet away and tucking his legs under himself, pulling a corner of the sheet over his own knees. Harry follows every movement with his eyes, like Louis is something he can’t get enough of, and it’s unsettling, being the center of such focused attention.

“What’s all this anyway,” he asks, motioning toward the confetti and ignoring the question.

Harry’s sigh is both longsuffering and beautiful.

“I forget to lock this place sometimes,” he replies. “People come up here during parties. I don’t know what they do. Really don’t wanna know actually. ‘Cause sometimes I sleep out here and, like, I wash everything of course, obviously. But it’s kind of annoying.”

Louis coughs, making a show of looking around himself with wide eyes. “Oh my god, you mean just tonight, someone could have . . . and we’re just sitting here?”

Harry shrugs, a sheepish smile pulling at his mouth.

“I can’t believe you. What is wrong with—“ Louis starts, but Harry is full-on laughing, holding his belly with one hand and the other clasped over his mouth.

“I’m kidding, Louis,” he giggles, tongue poking out at the corner of his mouth. Louis catches the movement and files it away. “Shanie and some of her friends had, like, a study thing up here the other day. I was out and the house was locked and, like, they were all already here ‘cause I’d promised they could use my place.”

“So it was just studying?” Louis narrows his eyes, trying to decide if Harry is lying or not.

Harry nods, but freezes halfway through. “Well,” he drags out the vowel sound. “Obviously it was a bit more than studying.” His gaze drops to the confetti all around them, the paper Christmas hats and the broken crackers. It’s not even Christmas yet, Christ, this kid is festive. “But yes, mostly just that.”

“You’re sure?” Louis asks, because this is important. Like, his life might depend on it.

Harry laughs again, quiet and giggly. “Nobody _came_ up here if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

And fucking shit, he can’t just _say_ things like that.

Louis falls over, pretending to faint, kicking his legs out until the sheet is properly tangled between them. “You’ve done it,” he exclaims, keeping his eyes closed and clutching at his chest dramatically. “You’ve gone and said it! There’s no going back now, nothing we can do, nope, nothing at all.” The sound of Harry’s laugh spurs him on, encouraging him to flop around a bit more, flailing and sighing as pointedly as he can.

When he peeks his eyes open, Harry is wiping at his eyes with his large hands, eyes crinkled in laughter.

“I thought you said _I_ was weird,” he says, and Louis drags a different blanket over his eyes, sticking his tongue out and scrunching up his nose. He likes this. It feels so natural to be himself with Harry, to just act on his impulses and not have to think about whether or not people are judging him.

“You _are_ weird,” he retorts, face still half under the blanket so that he can’t see Harry, can’t see anything but it doesn’t really matter because he doesn’t feel like he has to know what’s going on, doesn’t feel like he would jump even if Harry were to shout something loudly just then, doesn’t feel tense or on edge. It’s freeing, unrestrained, in the same way he had been thinking earlier about wanting to be free to make art. Like maybe life is art and there are certain people who make you feel free enough to live. Or maybe he’s just being idealistic again. He tosses the blanket off of his face, sitting up. “You broke the Code,” he says, hands on his hips, shaking his head like Harry has done some unforgivable, dastardly thing. “Terrible things happen to people who break the Code.”

Harry hums. “What sorts of terrible things?”

Louis chooses to ignore the suggestive nature of that comment. “Death, for one,” he answers, all faux-seriousness, and then begins counting off on his fingers. “Becoming a ghost. Becoming a vampire.” He shudders at the mere thought. “Blindness. Always being hungry. Always having to pee. Some people even develop an allergy to umbrellas.”

Harry shakes his head at him, the smile on his face small and amused. “Who are you?” he asks, and Louis just chuckles.

“Wish I knew, love,” he says, mouth soft around the endearment. It sounds so sweet on his lips.

They sit like that for a minute or two, still and silent under the rising moon, and Louis wonders if Harry is thinking the same thing as he is—how easy silence passes between them, gentle and careless and not at all heavy. Then Harry reaches under the blanket on his lap and pulls out a small zip lock bag, waggling his eyebrows at Louis. “Yeah?” he asks, and Louis nods, because yeah, sure, why not? He hasn’t had a proper smoke in ages, too caught up in his cigarettes and in being alone, and he’s wondering if Harry is different when he smokes, wondering if he’ll laugh louder and what he looks like with glazed, half-lidded eyes. And okay, yeah, he definitely wants to do this.

“We can’t talk about stupid things though,” he decides, lifting his eyes from the baggie to Harry’s face. The way he arches an eyebrow reminds Louis of the way the world bends.

“Like what?”

Louis shrugs, coat rustling against his torso as his shoulders move up and down. “Like how tragic our life is and shit like that.”

Because that’s Louis’ rule for when he smokes. Happy conversations are fine, deep conversations are fine, even mild complaining about silly things is fine, but sitting around and whining about life and what not is absolutely not something he ever wants to be found guilty of doing.

Harry’s brow is furrowed. His mouth opens and closes before he says, with the air of someone who is quoting something, “Behind every exquisite thing that existed there was something tragic.”

Louis shakes his head furiously. “No,” he insists. He knows those words, that quote, written by Oscar Wilde, and as much as he admires the guy he will never let himself believe them. “No, that’s bullshit.” He sounds so serious, vehement and adamant, and it shocks him mildly because he hasn’t felt like fighting for anything in so long. “You don’t have to become a tragedy to be beautiful. No way.”

He thinks Harry will probably laugh at him for his aggressiveness, but when he meets the boys eyes, Harry is looking at him calmly, head tilted to the side and eyes looking like they’re trying to connect the dots that make up Louis or something equally as cheesy, like they’re trying to solve the puzzle that he is. It makes his stomach swoop unexpectedly.

“Okay,” Harry says, whispers. And Louis nods.

“Okay.”

Somehow, he thinks Harry understands.

Louis watches as he rolls the joint, his careful, elegant fingers making even this mundane task seem like an art form. When he puts it to his rose-red lips, the breath rushes out of Louis and he feels high already, the blizzard outside spinning through his head and into his veins.

When he passes Louis the joint and their hands brush, the sensation is overwhelming.

 

* * *

 

"You make me feel funny,” Harry confesses, later, when the loft is full of shadows and smoke. “Like, the butterflies in my stomach are doing backflips."

Louis giggles, hollowing his cheeks around the joint. They’re both lying down now, side by side on a pile of messy blankets, their legs long and stretched alongside each other’s, tangled in sheets and tatters of confetti. "I don't think butterflies do backflips, love."

Out of the corner of his eye, Louis can see Harry nodding his head vigorously. When he speaks, his voice is so earnest it’s physically painful. "Mine do. They're special butterflies. They were raised right by their mamas to do backflips."

That’s. That’s just _absurd_ , Louis thinks. And then he’s wondering if butterflies have mothers, and if their mothers actually take care of them or if they let them out into the world to survive on their own. Harry would probably have a fit if that were the case. He seems like the type, having nearly cried earlier when Louis mentioned how the bee population was dying out. "I think you're high."

"I think _you're_ high,” Harry retorts. He’s buzzing with energy, turning to face Louis and then back onto his back, hands messing with his hair and then tugging at his shirt. They’d both lost their jackets a while ago, slipping out of them and tossing them off the loft onto the floor in a fit of giggles, pretending they were parachutes, and he looks so good in his white Oxford even if it is buttoned all the way up. A shame, really. Louis wants to touch his skin, wonders if his body is as soft as it looks beneath all that fabric, wonders if he’d be allowed to. “You're higher than me,” Harry is saying, continuing. “You're the highest thing there is, like, like the stars or the moon or something. Like the king of the stars."

Louis breaks into another fit of giggles at that, before swallowing and forcing himself to breathe. He is calm and controlled. "What are you saying?"

"That you're the highest,” Harry answers, his voice deeper and slower than it’s been all night. It doesn’t sound like molasses anymore, sounds instead like Bourbon or dark chocolate or something equally rich.

"We're both high, Harry, shut up." He squints his eyes closed, waiting for the kaleidoscope of colors that bombards the inside of his eyelids every time he does this.

Harry is still talking though, and his voice is like music, it’s like choirs, it’s like the best thing Louis has ever heard.

“But you’re, like, extra high,” he drawls. “You make me want to be higher so I can be with you.”

Good God, this boy. What on earth is he talking about? “Sometimes you just say things and I have zero idea what you mean,” Louis admits.

“Can you come down?”

“What?”

Harry is right next to him, and it’s all very confusing.

“Come down to where I am,” he whines, voice higher but still deep. “I wanna touch you.”

Louis rolls over at that, finding himself draped half over Harry, their bodies running together lengthwise, touching in what he’s certain are at least a thousand places. Everything feels hot. He wants to see if the snow will melt around them if they walk through it, if they’ll leave searing trails of red and orange in the whiteness.

“Happy?” he asks, and goddammit, this kid better be happy because Louis just rolled his entire body over so that he could touch him, and if that doesn’t say something about the level of friendship they have achieved in just a few short hours then he doesn’t know what does. It was a hard task too, in his lazy state of mind. He deserves an Oscar.

Harry hums, and Louis feels a warm touch along his back as one of Harry’s arms wraps around him, keeping them close. “M’happy,” he murmurs, and then, “I think . . . I think you’re nobody.”

And Louis—he can’t let that go unchallenged. “Excuse you,” he tries making his voice sharp and probably fails, probably would fail anyway even if it weren’t for his current state. He bats a fist loosely at Harry’s chest. “I am the most important person. Actually the Queen wants to meet me, and the President, but I told them I’d have to take a rain check. That’s how important I am.”

Harry giggles prettily. It’s so pretty. So, so pretty. He’s so pretty. “No, I mean,” he starts, speaking quietly into Louis’ ear, and Louis doesn’t even try to suppress the shiver that runs along his body, knows Harry can feel every single jolt of it and he doesn’t even care. He wants him to know what he does to him. “Nobody knows how to make me happy. But you do. So, like, you must be nobody.”

That’s nice. That’s nice that—but no. No, wait a minute. That’s _sad_. Harry can’t be sad. Louis rolls off of him and then sits up, arranging his sluggish limbs until he’s sitting cross-legged.

“What about your friends?”

Harry shakes his head, rolling it against the blankets where he’s still lying down. “I don’t have friends.”

Louis is confused by that, because it definitely looked like he had friends when he was in the kitchen in the house, chatting away with five billion people who all were probably thinking about how badly they wanted to touch him. Or something like that.

“You definitely do,” he asserts. “I saw you, upstairs. You were talking.”

Harry’s eyes close, and he rubs a hand over them before returning his stare to the ceiling. Louis puts the joint out with his fingers when he realizes he’s still holding it.

“They just,” Harry starts, his words rough at all their edges, catching onto the night and staying. “They just want to say they’re, like, friends with me because I make money and stuff. People . . . they sort of know me? I guess? Like I’m that gay artist boy with the big house. I don’t know.” His words trail off in a sigh, and Louis wants to hold him close, wants to cuddle him and never let him go.

“You’re more than that,” he whispers, and it’s forceful, insistent, like he needs Harry to believe it. “You’re . . . you’re so much. I don’t even know you and I know that.”

Harry smiles at him but doesn’t say anything.

“What about Shanie then?” Louis asks.

Relief washes through his body when Harry’s smile breaks into something more real. “She’s a good friend.”

Good, Louis thinks. Harry has a good friend. That’s good. Even if it isn’t Louis, that’s still good. Definitely good. Louis feels like being petulant about it but he won’t.

The loft is drowned in silence then, even the sounds from the party quiet and far-off, like they’re passing through walls and vertical oceans or something to get to them. If that even makes sense. It doesn’t. Louis knows it doesn’t. He sits still, breathing, trying to focus. The high is wearing off, and he’s starting to feel sleepy and warm all over. Wants to fall into the blankets around him and stay there. Wants to fall into this boy and stay there. Wants wants wants wants wants. Sometimes it seems like it’s always wanting with him. Wanting and forgetting.

Harry sits up, blankets tumbling from his body like cascading waterfalls, like moonlight spilling into the sky.

Louis closes his eyes and wills himself not to reach out and touch. He has no idea where the joint went, which is probably dangerous, but he did put it out. So.

"Look, I'm king," Harry says, sounding like a child in his exuberance, and when Louis opens his eyes he's grinning at him wide as ever, all white teeth. There's a pink paper crown lopsided on his head, one of the ones from the discarded Christmas crackers lying around them on the carpet. He's got dimples, Louis notices for the thousandth time, deep dimples that press into his cheeks and that Louis wants to dip a finger in. Behind him is the window frame, all swirling snow dizzying against a blue-black sky, and though his high is wearing off, it’s definitely still present, because it makes his head spin like crazy and his thoughts swim—thoughts like: I'm going to kiss him. Like: his mouth is so red. Like: his eyes are so bright.

Thoughts like: everything in the whole universe is happening right in this second. 

He shuffles forward on his knees and feels the carpet burn through the holes in his jeans, the blankets in crumpled piles around him, before bending to pick up another of the discarded Christmas crowns. It's green, this one, and still folded, and that means something to Louis for some reason. It means that someone else didn't want it, that they didn't see in it what Louis is seeing in it right now, what Harry is making him see. It means that someone else was here, in this room with the same Christmas crackers and the same paper crowns and they just left it all behind because they  _missed_  something. It means that Louis gets to pick up what they left behind, and he feels special, like a little kid who finds value in an old shoe box or whatever that his parents threw away. Careful not to tear the paper, he unfolds it and maneuvers the hat onto his head. When he looks up, Harry is smiling at him so wide Louis’ afraid his face might split open.

They stay just like that for a bit, looking at each other. 

Paper-crown kings—pink and green.

Something's missing though, and Louis notices a small blue throw blanket just to his right, caught under his knee.

"Here," he says, dragging it out from under himself and scooting closer to Harry to lay it over his shoulders. "There ya go, King Harry." His voice is all quiet and rough at the edges, unnaturally soft. When he sits down on his knees to survey his work, his breath hitches. 

He just—he hadn't realized how close he was until now, but Harry's face is right there in front of him, paper crown still lopsided and grin settled into something more . . . more like something that Louis doesn't want to think about, and it makes his chest feel funny. His freckles are all stark against his pale skin, his curls smushed beneath the crown and one drooping dangerously close to his eye, and his cheeks are flushed rose-colored to match the tissue-paper hat he's wearing. He's just really, really close is the thing, and yeah, Louis definitely is still a little high because he would not be indulging this boy the way he is if he hadn't.

Outside, lightning claps bright against the windowpane, but inside all Louis can see is blue shadows edged in silver, a silhouetted boy just inches away.

And he isn't doing anything, is the thing, anything at all, other than sitting there in the moonlight with all the softness of the world in his eyes.

Fucking hell, does it make Louis want to cry. 

Harry leans forward, moving into Louis’ space, and Louis feels his crown move around a bit on top of his head as the boy rearranges it, no doubt fixing the shitty job he did trying to cram it on there himself. Louis can feel Harry's breath hot against his forehead, can feel the heat emanating from the center of his chest, from his mouth, his legs, his knees pressing up against Louis’. There's a buzzing in Louis’ ears reminiscent of the blizzard outside, like all of that has gotten inside of him somehow and it won't go away.

"Ta-da," Harry finishes, sitting back. "It was all . . ." His hands do a weird wobbly thing that Louis guesses means lopsided. 

Man, this fucking boy.

"So's yours," he tells him, and God, his voice sounds really bad. He has to clear his throat before speaking again. "Lemme." He reaches a hand up and rearranges Harry's crown, tucking the stray curl back behind his ear even as he tells himself not to bother. 

His head is spinning, spinning, spinning, a coin flicked carelessly across a table.

He wants to tell him he reminds him of summer.

He wants to kiss him like mad. 

And what the fuck, that is so not something that Louis can want. Also, he's supposed to hate this boy, with his fucking voice and hands and dumb stories. He's not supposed to want him.

"Louis." 

Louis blinks his eyes once, twice, the rest of the world swimming into focus. He was staring, he realizes, not that he'd ever admit it except maybe under duress, and Harry's wild grin is back now, the one that changes his entire face, lighting him up like lightning. He looks down at his hands, twisting his thumbs together, and in less than a second there's a larger pair of hands covering his, warm and heavy, and he feels it in his gut when Harry speaks again. It feels like flowers growing.

"Will you be my king?" He's speaking to Louis with complete seriousness in his voice, and it's all a little ridiculous if he's honest. Which. He isn't. Hardly.

So he just nods, shrugging, and says, "Sure, why not, Curly," not a fan of the way he can't manage to keep the blush from spreading across his cheeks, blooming like more flowers. He can't look up at Harry because he knows if he does he'll be able to see it all: the warmth he feels for this kid, the fireworks erupting in his chest, so many colors but there's mostly green. Green like Harry's eyes, green like the world, like life, like growth, like starting over.

Harry laughs, squeezing at Louis’ hands still in his lap. "We're kings of the world now." And it does kind of feel that way, with everyone else in the house and them sitting up above all the noise, draped in moonlight and stars. "We can do whatever we want," Harry goes on, voice low like a secret. "Anything ever. No one can stop us now that we're kings."

Louis looks up then, meeting the boy's eyes. "What do you want to do then, Curly?" he asks, tilting his head to the side with an amused smile. He's not entirely sure what he's waiting for Harry to say. He's waiting for something though, he knows that much. Waiting like falling.

Harry scoots closer, until he's practically in Louis’ lap, still kneeling with his thighs on either side of Louis’. "Kiss you," he says, all open and eager and what the hell, how is Louis supposed to say no to this? "I really want to kiss you now."

"That's just because I'm king now," Louis teases, finally poking one of his fingers into one of Harry's dimples. "You only want me because I'm king."

Harry shakes his head. "S'not true," he says, serious and quiet. "I would want you even if you were poor and didn't have a crown."

For some reason, that's important to Louis, and it seems important to Harry too, if the way his hands catch Louis’ wrist again and his fingers tighten around it is anything to judge by. Louis swallows. He reaches up and removes the crown from his own head, dropping it down onto the carpet. "And what if I was nobody?" he asks, and he's glad Harry's taking this weird thing they're doing so seriously, because suddenly it's the most serious thing ever to Louis and he needs to know what Harry's going to say. "What if I was nobody, and I had nothing, and I was going nowhere at all? What about then?"

And holy shit, they're so close now, Harry's hands on his shoulders and their faces just inches apart. 

"Then I'd go there with you," Harry whispers, breath hot and Louis doesn't know what it means—that nothing else is enough to keep him warm. "If you were nobody, and had nothing, and were going nowhere at all, I'd go nowhere with you and make it somewhere. And yeah, I'd still want you. Fuck," he laughs, rough into Louis’ mouth. "'Course I'd still want you. You're like, you're like everything. You make me feel everything."

"Fuck,  _Harry_ ," and he's leaning into him, wrapping a hand around the back of his neck beneath his soft curls, trying to press their mouths together while outside the snow keeps piling up. "You can't fucking—you can't fucking _say_ shit like that."

And then they're tumbling, down, down, down in the dark, forever and ever is what it feels like, until he's lying on top of Harry, watching his eyes in the pale square of moonlight they've fallen into. They're more grey than green now, silvery, glittering like rain. Like ripples echoing across the ocean. Louis wants to drown.

He wishes he had a photographic memory like Harry's because he wants to remember every single aspect of this moment so that he can write it all down. It terrifies him that someday he might forget pieces of this, that he might lose the way Harry curves up into him like a boat, like the whole fucking ocean bending over the horizon, that he might forget the way his huge hands glide under his shirt like he's trying to memorize him, might forget the noises he makes, soft and low, might forget any part of it at all—how wet his mouth his, how colors spring to life behind his eyelids. It's terrifying, and electric. It's, it's.

It's fucking ruining him, is what it is.

Louis pulls back, hovering over Harry in the darkness. The boy looks wrecked and he feels the same way, all torn apart from the inside like he's made of paper. He dips down again and kisses him one more time before sitting back across Harry's knees, pinching at his own lips with his finger. "You're crazy," he tells him, shaking his head, and he means it, he really does.

Harry sits up on his elbows, grins like he has a secret. "S'your fault. You make me crazy."

And Christ, what even is this kid?

"Was it good," Harry asks, biting down on his bottom lip. He's lying right in the square of blue from the window, hair spread out around his head, and it makes him look almost ethereal, like a ghost or something that floated in with the cold. "Was kissing me good?"

Louis huffs out a laugh, unable to take his eyes off of Harry's face. It has to be some sort of trance he's put him in, because Louis isn't like this. He doesn't  _do_  this—stare at people like they mean something to him, like they're important. "It was okay," he says, because he likes being a tease and riling Harry up. He's got the best pouty face Louis has ever seen, and it makes an appearance now, plush lower lip sticking out and eyebrows crinkling up on his forehead. 

"I thought it was more than okay," he whines, lying back against the blanket still around his shoulders and squinting at the ceiling, like he doesn't understand what he did wrong that made Louis not like it.

God fucking dammit.

Louis moves his body back over him and presses his lips to his, once, twice, before moving them to the space between his eyebrows and kissing him there, trying to get rid of the worried crinkles there. "It was perfect, yeah, love?" He's not even sure if Harry was joking about being concerned or not, but it doesn't matter. His stomach had felt all tight at seeing Harry worried like that, the flowers that had been growing inside of him starting to wither and wilt away, and it was actually painful not to do anything about it. And that's like, it's confusing to Louis because he hasn't felt that way about anyone in such a long time. Even the way he felt for his last boyfriend—the only one that lasted long enough to mean anything—had been subdued and pale in comparison to this, this crazy in-tuned-ness where Harry's sadness makes him sad and his happiness makes him ecstatic. He thinks of being on a carousel, going 'round and 'round chasing after something that's right in front of him.

Harry's face lights up in the blueness. "Yeah?" he asks, wriggling his fingers under Louis’ collar, holding on.

"Yup," Louis answers, kissing his cheek. And why,  _why_  does he do that? He can't have this, okay, he can't have this boy in all the ways he wants him, and so he really needs to stop digging himself deeper and deeper into this . . . this  _thing_  they have.

"And you're not just saying that, right?" Harry's other hand comes up behind Louis’ neck, scratching at the base of his skull. He looks like he knows what he's doing, and it makes Louis suspicious, but not suspicious enough to do anything about it, because Harry's making him feel tired and lazy and all worn out in the best sort of way and sue him if he doesn't want it to end. 

"No," he murmurs, letting himself melt into the touch. "Not just saying it, love."

Harry giggles and Louis wonders what he said. Whatever it is, he thinks he'd like to say it again and again if it pulls that sound out of him, all high and bubbly. "What?" he questions, closing his eyes. It's annoying how he can't keep his mouth from curving into a smile, but he just. He  _knows_  what Harry tastes like now, and it's good. It's really, really good.

Harry tugs a little on the hair at the back of his head, and Louis has to forcibly swallow down a moan. Because no. This is not happening right now. Not yet.

And when did  _never_  turn into  _yet_? 

"You called me love." He hears Harry's voice distantly over the droning in his head. Distantly because like. He's really turned on right now. Which is fine, it's fine. He's lying over a beautiful boy who's playing with his hair, who he just kissed and who tastes like spring and summer and butterflies and shit like that, so it's only expected that he'd be a little bit turned on. Or a lot. It's details, really.

It only hits him just then what Harry is saying, that Louis had called him love, and fuck he should have  _known_  his mouth would betray him like that. Subtle bastard. He collapses entirely onto Harry, going limp everywhere. "I don't know what you mean," he tells the skin behind his ear, biting playfully at the boy's earlobe. What is this, seriously? Why is he doing this?

"You did," Harry giggles, drawing out the "I" sound. He wiggles underneath him and Louis is putting about ninety-five percent of his energy right now into not getting hard. "I heard you with my own ears. That’s, like, the third time you’ve said it."

"Well maybe you have shitty hearing, man." Louis kisses over his ear before rolling off of him onto the blankets and the carpet. He doesn't know how to do this, hasn't touched anyone like this in what seems like forever. A second later, he feels a heavy arm over his chest as Harry flings all his limbs out like some kind of gangly starfish, turning his head to look at Louis. His face is half-lit like this, part blue and part dark, the blue part covered in constantly moving flecks of grey, little specks of snow from outside fluttering in the light of the window and casting shadows over his features. For the second time that night, Louis feels like the winter has got inside of him, and maybe inside of Harry too, and he would believe it maybe if everything wasn't so warm.

"My hearing is perfectly fine,  _man_ ," Harry mocks, and Louis rolls his eyes and looks back up at the ceiling, smiling like an idiot.

Everything is winter but nothing is cold.

He thinks it’s the strangest feeling he’s ever known.

"Hey," Harry whispers, and Louis rolls on his side to look at him, thoughts melting away. His body is so long next to his own, all legs and arms and messy hair. "Hey, you wanna do something?"

Louis raises his eyebrow, curious. "Okay," he says. "Can I ask what?"

Harry shakes his head, biting his lip again as if trying to hold his smile back. "Nope. Wait here."

And then he's gone, clambering clumsily across the loft on his knees and slipping down the ladder. Louis can hear his feet thumping quietly against each rung, hear his laughter and muffled curse as he trips over something down on the floor, and he just lies there and listens to it all, the snowstorm outside swirling, swirling, swirling, burying itself inside his head.

He thinks then, _I'm going to miss him. He's the spring to my winter, the starlight to my empty skies._ He thinks, _I've never loved anything the way I love him, with curiosity, with jealousy, with shaking breath—the last lonely book in an attic discovered by a little boy._

He thinks it's ridiculous how poetic this boy is making him.

Thinks love is a ridiculous word. 

But even as he thinks that, he sits up jerkily and digs around in the blankets until he finds his journal, tossed aside in the corner of the loft next to his lighter and cigarettes, and he writes it all down. For the first time in what feels like forever, he writes. Writes how Harry claps a hand over his mouth after he laughs, how it felt to kiss him with the snow just outside, how it felt like smoke and fire to touch him. It's the first time in Louis’ life that he's ever felt so absolutely terrified of something and so absolutely brave at the same time, like maybe with their bright tissue-paper crowns they  _could_  be kings.

Could be anything, maybe.

He's almost ready to give up the  _maybe_ , and that kind of hope is what scares him the most.

 

* * *

 

When Harry’s mop of curly hair resurfaces, followed by the rest of his body, he’s carrying a box in one hand and something resembling an artist’s palette in the other. In the half-dark, his green-gold eyes look like two coins reflecting and refracting light, like the surface of a pool when it’s nighttime and there are lights at the bottom and the yellow touches the blue and the water moves in bright, illuminated ripples, lapping gently against the concrete—the ebb and flow of an ocean contained. His movements are languid and graceful as he makes his way across the loft, shuffling forward on his knees to where Louis is, and Louis watches every strain and reflex of muscle, every twist of his body and subtle stumble as he passes over the blankets, coming toward Louis like a ghost, like a phantasm floating silently across the water. He feels like kissing Harry has flicked on some switch hidden deep inside of his consciousness, one that’s making him in tune to every single nuance, every single flicker of eye-movement and hitch of breath belonging to this boy. God, but he wants so badly to know what will happen if he kisses him again, what will happen if he touches him, if he presses his hands over his bare skin—if he _tastes_ him. He can’t even imagine it, is the thing. The idea seems somehow beyond him.

Harry stops moving forward once he’s sitting right in front of Louis, and Louis’ hands are shaking for an entirely different reason, now. For desire, for the desperate, frantic need to reach out. He wants to hold onto something, wants to grasp something tight enough that he’ll never be made to let it go, and there he goes again with the wanting, with the always, always wanting. Wanting to write, to be able to take care of himself, of someone else, maybe, wanting this boy, wanting the world.

He wonders if, in the palm of his hand, it would look something like Harry’s name—a messy hand script, curving and complex.

He leans forward, because now he can, and wraps a small hand around Harry’s neck before kissing him, chaste and dry but not without significance, without connotation. Because kisses have connotations in the same way words do. Every kiss is just that—a kiss—but some mean _I’m happy you’re home_ and some mean _I’m going to take you apart_ and some mean _you’re special to me_ and some mean _thank you_. This one right here means _you’re beautiful_. It’s Louis’ favorite kiss to give, and he’s never found a recipient so worthy. He wants to tell Harry he has the monopoly on this particular kiss, but he doesn’t know exactly how, and so he decides to save that particular confession for later. Later. He wants them to have a later.

Wants, wants, wants. His head is a chorus of it.

When he was younger and still at home, he had been in charge of taking care of his younger siblings a lot of the time, and he remembers reading a book to his little sisters Dairy and Phoebe once about a fairy girl who fell in love with a merman, who had to choose between wings and a tail, the lesson being that it isn’t what you want that’s important—it’s what you want _more._

He wants to get his life together so that he can take care of himself and the people he cares about, and he wants to dive head first into this thing between him and Harry without worrying about anything else.

But seriously, screw children’s books. Maybe if he starts the getting-life-together bit, like, tomorrow, he can have both.

Harry exhales against his lips, breath coming out around a soft whine and shivering full-body under Harry’s touch. Louis pulls gently at the soft strands of hair at the nape of his neck, the little downy ringlets that have escaped his bun, and he hears the clattering of the box and palette when Harry drops them, feels his entire brain shut down and then wake up again, neurons rapid-firing as Harry’s hands bracket his hips, thumbs nearly touching in the front over his stomach because damn, the hands on this kid. Seriously. Louis’ going to write sonnets in praise of them. He’s going to write ballads.

They’re both grinning when it’s over, smiles pressed into each other’s mouths, passing breaths back and forth like secrets. Harry gives his waist a small squeeze, and Louis uses both his hands to tuck errant pieces of hair behind Harry’s ears, petting over the skin behind them and giggling when the first time causes Harry’s breath to stutter. This, right here, is something he thinks he wouldn’t mind doing forever—this quiet exchange of touches and kisses and gentle caresses, of breaths, this metronomic give and take that’s washing over them like the tide, slow and then reckless. He’s thinking ahead, of a life they could have, of a thousand priceless moments woven between work and art and he has to stop himself because he’s known this boy for four hours maybe, known him for one night, and he already aches for forever. Already likes the way it sounds rattling about in his mind, like a pair of loaded dice he has absolute certainty will always land on the same number.

“What’r’you laughing at?” Harry mumbles, words all blurred together, moving forward to drag his nose across Louis’ cheek. It makes Louis giggle a second time. His hands frame Harry’s face, thumbs swiping delicately over the boy’s cheekbones, as if only the softest touches will keep him close.

He shakes his head the tiniest bit, biting down on his lip to keep his smile from growing. “Nothing. You . . . you just.” He sighs, huffs out a laugh. “You’re really beautiful. I’m kind of overwhelmed here.”

“Shh,” Harry hushes him, and then he’s moving his nose back across Louis’ cheek until it bumps into Louis’ nose, mouth closing over Louis’ mouth, teeth nipping at his bottom lip. It’s a light thing, and then he’s pulling away, smoothing the palms of his hands over Louis’ ribs, fingers dipping in turn into each of the valleys and sliding over the bumps where his bones are, like he’s following some sort of piano sheet music with the most delicate contour. He tucks his face into Louis’ neck, and Louis can feel so acutely when he breathes out against his skin, hot air sending cold chills down his spine. Harry’s fingers move to his chest, pushing the collar of his shirt further down Louis’ shoulder where it’s already starting to slide because of how stretched out it's become over the years. He mouths at the skin of his shoulder, so soft. “Have you seen yourself?” he asks, his voice quiet enough to keep Louis in this delicious headspace he’s found himself in, heavy and somnolent. “You’re, like, the summer or something. Where did you come from?”

Louis laughs, pushing him away, but Harry holds him tighter, fingers splayed across his sides. “I’m serious,” Harry continues. “You remind me of a Greek god, like Apollo maybe. He was the god of the sun, right? And poetry and music and things. That’s what you remind me of. Are you actually Apollo and you just aren’t telling me?” He lifts his face from Louis’ shoulder to blink at him, eyes wide and mouth pouty, and Louis rolls his eyes, pinching the boy’s puffy bottom lip with his thumb and pointer finger.

“I’m not Apollo,” he says. “Cross my heart.”

Harry narrows his eyes, fingers coming up to circle Louis’ wrist and pry it away. “Well what if you are and you just don’t know? Like, what if you’re a reincarnation of Apollo?”

Louis leans in, pecks him on the lips quickly before leaning back again. “Then that would be something,” he says, and Harry hums, seemingly content to leave it at that.

Another moment passes, and the Harry seems to remember something, eyes widening. “Can I paint you?”

Louis nearly chokes on his own saliva. “What?”

"Paint,” Harry repeats, as if that clarifies everything. “I want to paint you."

And that. Louis’ never had anyone tell him they wanted to paint him before, isn’t sure if, before now, the idea would even sound appealing to him. He wonders what Harry sees in him when he looks at him though, wonders how it would transfer to paper, to a canvas. Mainly, he wonders what Harry looks like when he’s painting, if he’s focused and determined, if his eyebrows furrow and that little line between them makes an appearance.

He wouldn’t normally say yes to this sort of request, because maybe he likes his own face a little more than the average human being but he isn’t vain, but he wants to say yes to Harry, and so he does.

“Oh,” he says. “Alright.”

He doesn’t even think about earlier, when he had passed his refection in the mirror and been startled by the pallor of it.

Harry seems taken aback, like he hadn’t expected it to be that easy. "Alright?" he asks.

Louis shrugs, still so close to Harry that his hands are on his shoulders, that when he shrugs, Harry’s body moves with it, his chest rises and falls in time. "Sure."

"Brilliant.” Harry moves away then, properly away, and it makes the room a little colder, Louis is sure of it. He starts scrabbling around on the carpet, gathering the things he brought from downstairs into his hands. “Take your clothes off."

Louis starts, then raises an eyebrow. "Excuse me?” he exclaims, because what? _What?_ “I am neither French nor a girl." And knows he’s embarrassed because he only starts referencing the Titanic when he literally cannot think of anything else to say.

Harry tosses his head back, groaning, and holy shit does that send heat unfurling low in Louis’ abdomen. "I  _know_  that. God, Louis, I know that. Like, I really, really know that. And I'm really, really thankful."

"Then why—" he starts.

"Leave your pants on though.” Harry interrupts. “Just take your clothes off. It's for, like, science?"

Louis’ laugh is loud and unexpected, and for good reason too, because who is this kid? How does his brain work? Louis wants to know.

"Nope,” he says, and it’s not even because he doesn’t want to—it’s just because he wants to be stubborn, and maybe also to see what other methods of persuasion Harry can come up with, but no matter.

Harry scoots closer, shuffling on his knees. "Please?" His hands are folded, and he leans forward just enough to peck Louis on the cheek.

And that’s. That’s just not _fair._ He did ask for it, he supposes. But still. Kissing. Louis is a fool for kissing.

His second _no_ is quiet and raspy and nowhere near as resolute as his first one was.

"But, Louis, it's my birthday."

And oh. That's right. He sort of knew that, didn’t he? "How old are you anyway?"

"Twenty-one."

Huh, Louis thinks. That's young. He thought Harry had graduated a while ago, and maybe he had graduated early or something but still. That’s. Harry is _young._

"You're a baby,” he says, teasing.

Harry pouts _a-bloody-gain_ , and Louis wants to shoot himself to the moon. "M’not."

"Are too,” he retorts, because he can do repartee, he’s great at it. What a great comeback. How intelligent and witty.

Harry moves his hands back to Louis’ sides, then slides them around to his back, bringing him closer to him with a gentle, insistent pressure on his lower back. He rests his forehead against Louis’, fingers moving to gently trace the lines of stubble over his jaw. Louis absolutely, resolutely knows what he’s doing, and he definitely is not going to give in, but he also can’t bring himself to pull away, can’t bring himself to do anything other than _feel_ as Harry mouths over his jawline, lips traveling slowly until they’re just beneath his ear. His voice is rugged and just as desperate as Louis feels when he says, "Please let me paint you."

And Louis senses the very moment that his resistance is drained out of him. He splays a hand across Harry’s chest, holding him back. "Would you at least mind explaining to me—"

"Want to paint you,” Harry hurries, words spilling over each other, moonlight turning his eager eyes bright and shimmering. “Like, _you._ Not a canvas. Just you.”

And _oh._  So he doesn’t want to paint him like one of his French girls. He wants something else entirely.

Louis swallows, watches Harry watch his Adam’s apple as he does. "This is weird, you know," he comments, feels the need to point it out.

"Okay,” Harry says. Agrees without actually agreeing. How does he _do_ that?

"People don't do this,” Louis continues, keeping his words slow because he’s waiting for Harry to suddenly realize that yeah, this is actually the strangest thing in the world and will probably be fairly intimate and why did he even suggest they do this again?

Instead, he just sighs, catching one of Louis’ hands in his and rubbing his thumb in small, absent-minded circles over his palm. "I know, I just . . .” He shrugs, beaming, smile wide and shameless. “You're really pretty and I want to paint you for science."

And. Well. How was he ever going to say no to that? 

“Well, I mean, if it’s for science.” And then he’s tugging his shirt over his head without another thought and tossing it aside, over next to where his journal and cigarettes lay, cocking his head a bit because he can tease too, if he wants. Is very good at it actually, if he does say so himself. And he does.

The way Harry stares, openly and unabashedly, is probably the hottest fucking thing Louis has ever experienced.

Still, he tries not to make too much of a deal out of stepping out of the rest of his clothes, kicking his tattered Vans off and then tugging his jeans over his legs, placing the pile of clothing next to his journal and sitting cross-legged again in front of Harry in nothing but his boxers and a pair of rainbow socks, the boy watching him quietly with a faint blush on his cheeks.

“What now, Curly?” Louis asks, and Harry very obviously drags his eyes over Louis’ body before answering.

“Lie down,” he says, and, um, okay. Why did Louis agree to this again?

“This isn’t like some creepy sex thing, right?” He raises his eyebrows, keeping his tone light. He isn’t really worried, doesn’t think Harry actually has the capacity to manipulate, much less hurt, a fly.

Harry shakes his head immediately, eyes meeting Louis’. “No,” he says. “No, it’s not, no. I . . .” He trails off, leaving the rest of the sentence unsaid, and for a moment he’s just sitting there in front of Louis, staring at him with his bottom lip between his teeth, eyebrows furrowed and yeah, there’s that little crinkle just between them. He fish-mouths and then, without saying a word, turns his head away, looking down and pinching at the bridge of his nose. His eyelashes flutter, casting dark shadows across his pale face when he closes his eyes, and he isn’t doing anything other than breathing hard, shoulders rising and falling as he sits in the darkness. Louis moves forward, rubbing a hand up and down on his arm like he had in the room upstairs.

“Hey,” he whispers, squeezing his shoulder. “You alright? You know I was just joking, yeah?”

Harry nods minutely, but doesn’t say anything. His breathing is hard and he won’t look at Louis, won’t look anywhere near him. It’s kind of alarming. Louis can’t help thinking then about what Allan had told him upstairs, that off-handed remark he had thrown in with the rest of his details about Harry, about the boy having secrets that nobody knows. He isn’t normally one to believe rumors, rarely even gives them a second thought because most of them turn out to be completely manufactured and ridiculous, but he thinks he would have been suspicious now anyways after witnessing the way Harry is acting. And something Louis had said had triggered it, maybe? Something he had done? He’s really at a loss.

Harry shakes his head before wiping at his face with his hand, pushing hair off of his forehead and giving Louis a soft chuckle. “I’m good, yeah. Sorry, I . . . . I guess I’m just a bit overwhelmed as well is all.”

Louis doesn’t believe him in the slightest. Sure, he understands the feeling of everything being too much. He certainly feels it himself, and not even because of the weed and the alcohol. Well, not mainly at least. He thinks it has more to do with the way Harry blushes pink like, yeah, like a fucking sunrise, has to do with the way his hands felt at his waist and the way he looks at him like he _matters._ Like this is more than some one-night, happenstance thing. So yes, he understands feeling overwhelmed. What he doesn’t understand is the way Harry’s shoulders are shaking, the way his hands have started trembling like Louis’ had been earlier, the way he looks like his body is trying to hold itself together. There’s something there, Louis thinks, something that he’s missing.

He moves his hand to Harry’s face, using his palm to turn the younger boy’s head toward him, his skin smooth beneath his touch. He’s trying to gauge his reaction, but it kind of isn’t working at all. “Hey,” he says, hushed. “Baby, listen. We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. For any reason, okay? You don’t even have to tell me.”

Harry’s face crumples at that, and Louis—he doesn’t even know what he said, what he _did,_ to deserve that sort of reaction. He feels panicky, wants to make it better.

“Come here.” He isn’t even sure if he’s still allowed, but he leans in and smears a kiss on Harry’s cheek, right next to his mouth, in the place his dimple would be if he were smiling. His hand cups the boy’s jaw, and after he finishes kissing him he swipes his thumb over the spot. It’s then that the _muchness_ engulfs him again, the heat from where their knees bush and elbows knock making him dizzy and lightheaded, and there’s something about this kid that cues Louis’ need to protect, like he knows he can’t hide Harry away from the world forever, knows it’s a silly thought and that it probably isn’t even healthy anyway, but he wants to, is the thing. Wants to keep him safe.

And then Harry is kissing him back, full on the mouth, hands grappling at Louis’ shoulders as he falls into him, as they fall backward into the blankets for the second time, and when Louis thinks his back is about to hit the floor, suddenly Harry’s hand is there—broad and sturdy against his bare skin—catching his fall and lowering him down slowly, dipping his body into the mess of sheets like it’s a breakable thing.

Maybe it is.

“Wha—“ Louis starts to ask, the syllable whooshing out on a breath before Harry’s lips meet his again, insistent and desperate, sloppy, so, _so_ good. His body is draped over Louis’ like a shadow, like another one of the many blankets, keeping him warm.

“I can’t believe you’re _real_.”

Louis almost misses the words with the sound of his own heartbeat throbbing in his ears, but he does catch them, one by one out of the air and it makes him laugh, makes him breathe hotly into Harry’s mouth and laugh, chest heaving and rough material of Harry’s shirt scratching his chest.

“Of course I’m real,” he says. “Nobody’s brilliant enough to make me up.”

Harry whines and ducks his face into Louis’ neck, and Louis lets his arms wind around his back to hold him, lets his hands rub soft circles against his shoulder blades, lets himself breathe and breathe and breathe until the night is calm again—until Harry seems to be shaking less atop his body and Louis has enough brainpower to will himself not to get hard. It’s very—well. It’s very _hard_ to do so. But he manages. Somehow. Because he’s a saint and also deserves to be knighted.

“I want to,” Harry says, after a little while has passed, and Louis can feel the words mouthed against his neck more than he can hear them. “I still want to . . . to paint you. If that’s, like, okay?” He sits up, knees bracketing Louis’ legs, and dear God does Louis hope he doesn’t scoot forward even one inch. That would be awkward.

Louis nods, smiling, glad that Harry seems slightly more okay now than he was a moment ago, though he still isn’t quite sure why. He reaches out and grabs hold of one of Harry’s hands with his own, giving it a light squeeze. “Yeah, baby. Whatever you want.”

Harry releases a shaky, “Yeah,” and then he’s gone, and Louis closes his eyes and listens to the sounds he makes as he fusses with his box of paints, humming under his breath a song that would probably be Don McLean’s “Vincent” if Harry had any ability whatsoever to sing in key. It’s only been thirty seconds and Louis wants to touch him again.

He’s only known this boy for hours.

_Hours._

The first touch of Harry’s paintbrush to his skin makes his breath hitch.

The second one, paintbrush discarded and Harry’s finger dipped in orange paint, takes it away entirely.

 

* * *

 

"This one's blue," Harry says. It's still snowing outside, and he's been on his knees between Louis’ legs for the last forty-five minutes, his fingers covered with various paints he's already used on Louis’ body. It feels so good, feels like he’s slipping slowly into unconsciousness, but man is it making Louis hot.

He sits up on his elbows, one of his longer strands of hair dropping across his forehead and over his eye. The only clothing he's wearing is a pair of Calvin Klein's, and his body is a wash of paint, all differing shades of bright color. Some of it is just random fingerprints and smudges, but a few of the designs are elaborate, flowering vines and landscapes and one cityscape vertical across his rib cage. Harry moves around a bit until he's lying on his stomach between Louis’ knees, and then he grins up at him, all teeth in the moonlit room, before dragging a slow finger across his thigh, leaving behind a thick trail of paint. Louis feels his thigh jump under the touch, watching the way the boy bites the inside of his cheek as he focuses, swirling his finger around in circles across his skin. Harry stops for a moment and dips a second finger into a different color before holding it up.

"Yellow," he says. Louis rolls his eyes because yes, he can see the color of the paint, thank you very much, but Harry keeps insisting on telling him, like it’s some sort of quirky ritual or something. Weird kid. Harry sticks his tongue out and makes a face, pinching his leg. Louis squeaks and jumps a little, and Harry only laughs, smoothing over the skin with the yellow-paint finger until there's another swirl there.

"Is that—"

"Starry Starry Night, yup," Harry interrupts. And okay, that makes sense, considering the song he had been humming earlier. It must have been on his mind. They grin at each other for a moment, like they're the cleverest boys alive, and then Louis feels so happy he has to look away, so he drops his head back against the carpet and covers his face with his arm.

It’s funny, because he’s giddy with happiness, but it’s also the most intimate thing Louis has ever experienced. Though at first he had been jumpy and on edge, every brush of Harry’s fingers against his skin now makes him feel relaxed in a way not even cigarettes have ever been able to, in a way nothing has been able to—not his writing or music or locking himself away in his room to count his breaths. That cigarette he wanted earlier sounds so unnecessary; his hands aren’t shaking, his heart isn’t rabbiting away in his chest. He feels important and wanted and calmed and even though this is probably one of the strangest things he’s ever agreed to do, it’s also turning out to be one of the best.

It's another twenty minutes before Harry's finished with him, calling out colors every so often while his fingers dance over Louis’ skin. Louis keeps his hand over his eyes and just feels, finds it soothing somehow to let Harry take over, to lie back and just let him have complete control. It feels like sinking almost, and like floating.

When he realizes it's been over a minute and Harry's hand hasn't moved from the position it found on his hipbone good minute ago, he sits up on his elbows again, blinking groggily. His breath hitches at what he sees.

The paintings are beautiful, yes. All of them, especially the Starry Starry Night. But Harry is something else entirely. He's sitting up on his knees again, one hand resting carefully on Louis’ hipbone and the other in his lap, fingers rubbing together to take some of the flakes of paint off. He's still wearing his dark jeans and Oxford fully-buttoned, and there's paint all over him from being close to Louis, paint on his shoulders and cheek and all over his expensive jeans. His head is half-bowed, and—

And fuck. His eyes are brimmed with tears.

"Hey, baby, no," Louis says, and he makes grabby hands at Harry until the younger boy is crawling over his body and he can press a warm kiss to his forehead. "I've got you, love, you're okay."

Harry nods, tear tracks streaming down his face, and Louis doesn’t know why, he just doesn’t know why Harry’s crying but he wants so badly for him to be okay.

He just. Fuck.

He feels so much. So, so much. They hardly know each other but it feels like this night has lasted forever.

Louis kisses his forehead again, and then his cheek, and then the slope of his nose and both his eyelids, wiping tears away with his small thumbs and deciding that he honestly doesn’t give a shit about the fact that Harry is bigger and taller and stronger than him—Louis is definitely big enough to shield him from the world and he is definitely going to.

There's a clap of thunder from outdoors, and Harry starts a little, jostling the two of them.

"You alright, baby?" Louis asks. His voice is all hushed and whisper-y, like there's something fragile in the air they might break if they aren't careful.

Harry nods, letting out a watery laugh. "Sorry, yes, I don't know why—"

"Shh, baby, you don't have to know why. That's fine. It's fine to cry sometimes, yeah?" Harry is so,  _so_  close that suddenly Louis is overwhelmed with it—with the need to touch him, to taste him, anything just to be closer.

Harry wants it too, apparently, if the way he licks his lips and the way his eyes—still shimmery with tears—catch on Louis’ mouth are anything to go by.

They've been kissing all night, so it isn't a new thing. But they haven't like this, with Louis spread out underneath him, his body all covered in paint—Harry’s paint—and wearing hardly anything at all. Harry seems like he needs this though, and Louis definitely wants it, wants it now and wants it again in the future. He wants it so badly he can feel himself shaking with all the things that he wants.

"Harry." His voice comes out higher than usual, a long whine, and it only takes a second before Harry is lowering his body fully to his, their lips just millimeters apart.

God, he hasn't even kissed him yet and he feels like he's going to implode. There's so much heat inside of him, furling and unfurling in wild transition, and heat outside of him from Harry's body—he feels like a star in that precise, volatile balance, only holding together because the pressure is equal everywhere.

"Yeah, yeah," Harry is mumbling, half-incoherent, and he's kissing him then, all slow and soft like syrup, hands petting up and down Louis’ sides as if calming Louis down will somehow calm himself down as well.

It doesn't work at first, does nothing but make Louis squirm and whine into Harry's mouth at how good the kiss is, warm and wet. In some far-off part of his brain he knows the half-dry paint on his body is smearing between them, coloring Harry in the same blues and yellows he had colored Louis with, but that idea only makes him want more. Like they could be so close they would be made of the same stuff. It's exhilarating, makes his whole body buzz and his belly warm, like alcohol, or something better.

After a while though, he feels himself settling, Harry's hands soft against his skin and his lips softer. Louis can feel himself melting into the boy, and when he pushes up just slightly to increase the friction he hears himself gasp into Harry's mouth, hot flares shooting throughout every nerve in his body. Probably. He doesn’t actually know anything about neuroscience.

Harry pulls back a little, still hovering over him, his eyes wide and his lips bitten dark. He's so pretty. He's so pretty and Louis just  _wants._

"Fuck, Lou." His voice is like the early morning, all heavy and cotton, the tears on his face mostly gone. He grinds his lower half down against Louis’. "Fuck." The second one is long and drawn out and deep, sounding wrenched from the back of his throat, and it sets Louis on fire.

They stay like that for a while, panting into each other's mouths, catching their breath. Something about the way Harry is fully clothed and Louis is wearing hardly anything at all makes him feel hot all over, and he wants to get Harry’s clothes off too, feel him warm against his body, maybe flip them over so he can touch him properly, touch him how he wants, so he can cater to every one of Harry’s quiet, desperate noises. He’s such a paradox of a boy, tall and broad-shouldered and nuzzling his nose into Louis’ neck like a kitten, slow-talking and clumsy but smart, Louis knows, talented and much too self-aware for how young he is. Louis’ head hurts; he tries to press them closer. Everything is white heat inside, while outside the heavy snow pelts the windows and flashes of lightning split the sky. Harry moves one of his hands to Louis’ belly, and Louis knows he can feel it flutter under his touch.

And God, Louis wants this. More than anything in the world, he wants this. And not only because he's a young, attractive man in his prime and sex is something he thinks about on a daily basis. He wants it because it's Harry, because if he’s going to do this again after years of staying away from pretty boys and their shallow lies then he wants it to be with him. Which is weird, okay, yes. But still. The heart wants what it wants. And Louis wants everything with him, really. More things than there are words for.

He groans when Harry's fingers slip under his boxers, rubbing circles against the skin there, soothing. And it’s not like it hadn’t crossed his mind that this is what the night had been leading up to, but he also hadn’t been sure, didn’t know what Harry would want and that’s okay, it’s fine really, but—

And then Harry’s hand is gone, his soft, circling motions against Louis’ skin are gone, and his head is shaking and then his hands and then his body, and Louis is pulling him close again, rolling them onto their sides and drawing a blanket over the two of them, cuddling close face-to-face, comforting in all the ways he knows.

He kisses his temple, brushing the curly hair there back.

He doesn’t _understand._

"It's fine, baby," he's whispering against the side of his head, forcing himself not to think about sex. Not at all. Not even a little bit. Because if it’s not what Harry wants right now then that’s fine. It’s wonderful. And right, he’s definitely not thinking about it. "I promise it's fine. We don't have to do anything you don't want to, not ever."

Harry coughs and then sniffles, fists in little balls against Louis’ chest.

"I’m not going anywhere, alright?" Louis says, and he hopes he sounds sincere, hopes Harry can read the sincerity in his voice, hopes he recognizes that he isn’t only talking about tonight, that he’s talking about whatever—whatever Harry wants to give him. He turns Harry’s head up toward him with a gentle brush under his chin and pecks him lightly on the lips.

Harry nods, eyelashes wet with tears, and snuggles closer to him. Louis lets his eyes wander upward, toward the window above their heads, thanking his lucky stars that the boy still wants him here, that his tears weren’t because of some terrible thing Louis had done and now he never wants to see him again.

That would be . . . . Louis might start crying too.

It’s a good half hour before Harry has stopped, but Louis is there the whole time, a warm body against his, petting his hair down and peppering his face with kisses. When Harry turns around to be the little spoon, which is achingly endearing and actually makes Louis’ heart explode, Louis plays with his fingers, tracing the patterns across his knuckles and the lines of his palm. The room stays dark and quiet, a little hideaway in the middle of a storm, all theirs and nobody else's, so very much like a home. 

And Louis’ happy. He’s so happy, but he’s also worried—about Harry, about the things he isn’t telling him.

Louis just . . . . He’s always had this habit of making other people's happiness into his own, which means, of course, that he's also had a habit of making other people's sadness into his own. It’s like that with his family, their disappointment in his chosen lifestyle continuing to eat at him even when he’s halfway across the globe. There have been times over and over when he’s had a near mental breakdown and thought about just giving everything up, giving up wanting to be a writer and forgetting everything he loves just to make his family happy, to make them proud of him. And there are others too, random boys and not-so-random boys he'd let himself be used by over and over because he'd chosen to care about them even after finding out they didn't give a shit. And he knows it's his fault, entirely, for caring too much. It always is. Always. And that’s fine, it’s fine. He’s learned how to treat himself better and how to stay away from unhealthy relationships. He’s a grown adult person now and he can take care of himself.

He’s just worried, is all, and he knows he’s going to be keep being worried until he figures it out, figures out what had made Harry tense up and shake and cry, what had made him fall into Louis’ arms like a child who needed to be held close. Louis’ nosy, okay, and he has to figure it out.

Which he can totally do. Because he’s sneaky and good at getting people to tell him stuff.

So. That’s happening. Tomorrow though. It’s happening tomorrow. He’s too tired for any investigating right now.

There’s a funny feeling twisting in his stomach as he drifts off to sleep, a long-lost energy he can feel buzzing in his veins, and it’s like. He has a pretty good reason to wake up tomorrow. And that’s. It’s nice.

In front of him, Harry shuffles around a bit, elbowing Louis in the chest before finally stilling. Louis thinks he says something along the lines of, “Wake me up for sand pies,” but he isn’t really sure, so he mostly ignores him.

Just before he falls asleep, he tries rerunning over all the reasons he shouldn’t be staying the night with Harry, tries telling himself that he really shouldn’t start caring about this curly-haired boy, because even if he is planning on stalking him until he figures out every last one of his secrets, it’s still just one night; it isn’t a promise, and he shouldn’t expect anything in the morning. And he definitely shouldn’t care as much as he already does. He shouldn’t let it overwhelm him. He tells himself this, over and over, as he falls asleep with his nose pressed warmly in between Harry’s shoulder blades and Harry's hair tickling his forehead and Harry's breathing lulling him to sleep and Harry's long fingers wrapping tightly around his wrist like a frightened animal who just needs something to hold onto.

He tells himself that this time, he isn't going to let himself feel anything.

But Harry shifts a little under the blankets, and wraps one of his big arms around Louis’ over his chest, pulling Louis’ small body against his own and humming something sleepy and quiet and achingly content into the night, the storm swirling white against the windowpane. And Louis. He just.

He feels everything.

 

* * *

 

Louis wakes up the next morning just as the sun is drowning the loft in pink and orange light. One of his arms is tucked around a warm body in front of him, and there’s curly hair sticking to his face and caught in his mouth, which should probably be more annoying than it is, really, but all in all Louis doesn’t much mind it. Harry is beautiful, long and lean in front of him, cheek smushed to the pillow and long, ringlets of hair falling loose around his shoulders and neck, his bun having fallen out sometime during the night. From where he is, Louis can only see one half of his face, but its illuminated by a soft morning glow from the tiny window, and there’s one curl that has fallen just over his nose, fluttering slightly each time Harry lets out a small breath.

He thinks about how he wakes up every morning in his flat, alone and in the dark, how he chokes on cigarette smoke and struggles to think of a single good thing to write about, and then he thinks about how this here is the most sever contrast to those mornings he’s ever known—this pastel sunlight and this warmth, this boy next to him that he can snuggle closer to if he wants, this inspiration.

He wants to write, suddenly. He feels like he has things to say.

Things like: _I have tried lying alone._

Like: _but now I have tried lying lengthwise next to Infinity._

Like: _did you know- the curves of His body suspend time._

And that’s. Well, it might not be good but it’s something. It’s certainly something.

There’s a buzzing noise from somewhere next to Louis’ hand, and he reaches his hand up and flops it around a bit, doing his best not to jostle Harry from his sleep. When his hand finally closes around the object, he sees it’s Harry’s phone, which is strange because he recognizes the number on the screen. It’s his own, and he has literally zero idea who it could be because fuck, that’s right, he just left his jacket in Harry’s house last night with a mob of drunken uni students. Smart thinking, that.

He normal wouldn’t answer someone else’s phone, but because it’s his number he does, sliding his thumb across the screen and putting it to his ear.

“I need to talk to Louis.” He recognizes the voice instantly.

“Niall! Bless you, man. Thank _God_ you have my phone.” Seriously. Niall is such a hero. He’d thought for sure that by now his phone would be up for sale in some esoteric corner of the black market in China. What a relief. “I thought some drunk kid might have run off with it last night. Seriously, you’re a star. How did you know to call—“

“Louis,” Niall interrupts, and he sounds—he sounds serious. Niall doesn’t usually sound serious. “I’m outside in my car. You should come. Like, now.”

Louis takes a moment to disentangle himself, albeit reluctantly, from Harry’s body, sitting up against the wall and dragging one of the blankets that Harry hasn’t hogged already over his knees. “What? Why? What’s up?”

There’s a shuffling sound on the other end of the line, and then Niall says, in a tight voice, “Did Harry tell you he went to uni?”

Louis can feel his brow furrowing. “Yes . . . But how did you—“

“Look,” Niall says, and his voice has gone all quiet and conspiratorial. “I was talking to his friend all night, chatting her up and shit, and we got drunk and she just . . . she told me you were with him and then she told me some stuff about him, and you need to come over here right now.”

Jesus. Louis rolls his eyes. Sure, maybe Harry had acted a little off last night, but the boy is a kitten. Like, an actual kitten who lives in a box of paint. “Niall, man, for the love of—“

He can hear Niall’s groan through the speaker. “He said he makes money selling his art, right? Said he went to uni and then started selling it and he just ‘got big’ somehow? Right?”

Louis bites at his thumbnail. It’s an awful habit he picked up from his mother and hasn’t managed to get rid of, probably because he isn’t exactly trying. “Well, yeah,” he answers, slowly, trying and failing to figure out what Niall is getting at. “He’s seriously good though. You should see some of his—“

“I don’t care how good he is,” Niall interrupts again. And that’s just rude, to be quite honest. Louis had _things_ to say. “He hasn’t sold shit. Not nearly enough to afford a house like this. Fuck, mate, he’s playing you.”

“I don’t see why—“

“Are you with him?” Niall asks, cutting him off, and it doesn’t even sound like he’s been listening to a word Louis’ been saying. He hurries on. “Fuck, of course you are. This is his phone. Oh my God, just—“

“Did he kill someone or something?” Louis interjects. Because hah. He can be rude too. He feels a bit panicky though, his chest starting to feel tight and his palms starting to sweat. “Holy shit, man, you’re acting like he killed someone?”

“No. I mean, no, not that I know of. But who knows? Can you just—“

Louis isn’t listening. He’s looking at Harry, who is fast asleep on his side with about four blankets pulled over him, fists tucked delicately under his chin and a bit of drool puddling on the pillowcase.

“No,” he says, and he’s surprised how decided he sounds. “Look. I spent the night with this kid, yeah? We set off fireworks together.” Louis hears a snort from Niall’s end and decidedly ignores it. “We ran around in the snow and froze our asses off together. I spooned him in his fucking art studio house loft thing and we didn’t even have sex, Niall. Like, he didn’t even want to do that. He’s like a fucking cherub boy. I don’t know what that friend told you but you guys were drunk and she probably—“

“He’s a _rent boy_ , Louis.”

And _what?_

“What?”

“You fucking heard me, mate. Now come on. Get over here so we can go. Just, like, say something subtle—oh! Say that I need your help, that I like woke up at some random girl’s house or something and need a ride home. Just say anything, and we can—“

“What?”

Harry is a rent boy. That’s. No. No way. And why would his mate let that slip at a party? What sort of friend—no. No, this isn’t . . . this doesn’t make sense. Fuck. What the actual fuck?

“Just say you—“ he hears Niall’s voice again on the line, but he can’t deal with that right now so he shakes his head.

“Shut the fuck up, Niall.”

“Um.” Niall clears his throat. “Look. Mate, I know—“

“Just stop.” Louis can’t deal with this right now. He can’t deal with anything. He can’t deal with being an adult or being alive or this. He really cannot deal with this. “Just fucking stop for like two point five seconds, _Jesus_.”

“I’m just trying to—” he hears Niall say, and what the fuck, _why_ is he still talking?

“ _Stop_.”

There’s silence on the other end of the line, and thank fucking God because Louis cannot breathe. He can’t think, he can’t breathe, he can’t feel any part of his body. He just . . . what the hell? There’s no way in hell that’s true. Harry’s right next to him, okay, and he’s soft and cheeky and kind and yeah he hogs the blankets but he also tucked Louis in like a child last night when he woke up and thought Louis was still asleep, and yeah, just. No way. No way no way no way. There isn’t a single part of his mind that can reconcile the Harry he knew last night with the Harry Niall is talking about. It can’t actually be true . . . _can it?_

Was that why he hadn’t wanted to have sex? Was that why he was so emotional last night? Does that even make sense? Do things like this happen to people?

He looks at Harry and all he wants to do is kiss him.

Fuck.

“Alright.”

Niall responds almost immediately. “Alright?”

“Alright, I’m coming,” Louis says, hushed. “Just give me a mo’.”

“Oh, thank God.”

But no. He does not get to treat this situation like that. “Don’t fucking talk like that, okay?” Louis bites, voice coming out a lot sharper than he had intended, and he had intended it to be fairly sharp. “Don’t you fucking dare talk like that. Like I’m getting out of trouble or something. I can’t . . . God, just. Fuck you.”

“Oi,” he sounds offended. “I came all the way back here to—“

Ugh. Yeah. Louis knows. He knows he’s just trying to do what he thinks is best for Louis. It still makes him so angry though. He’s so angry.

“I know,” he huffs into the phone’s speaker. “Christ, I know. Just let me be mad right now, will ya?”

Niall says, “Okay . . .” and Louis exhales, long and loud.

“Right,” he says. “Um. I’m on my way. Yeah.”

Then he hangs up the phone.

Holy shit, this is not his life right now.

He doesn’t want to leave. Fuck, his friend just called and told him the kid he’s currently huddled under blankets next to has sex with strangers for money, and he doesn’t even want to leave. He wants to dive back under the blankets and cuddle Harry to death, wants to feel his back warm and solid against his chest and keep him close until they’re both breathing in time with each other. He wants to pepper him with small kisses, on the nape of his neck and behind his ear, and watch while he slowly stirs awake, wait for him while he stretches and yawns and turns around and while his eyes blink open, lashes batting away sunlight. He wants to be here when he wakes up.

He’s always thought of sleep as such a vulnerable thing. Thought that to be able to trust someone enough to fall asleep next to them, to be quiet and still and defenseless next to them, is so astounding. After all, it’s pretty well known that bad guys don’t sleep when there are other people around. Louis’ seen enough movies. Not that Harry being a rent boy— _if_ he even is—makes him a bad guy. Just. Louis thinks he’s good. Thinks he’s so good.

And he could wait for him to wake up. He could stay here and talk to him about it when Harry wakes up. He could handle the situation like a normal adult person and they could have a normal adult conversation about it.

And then Harry could get mad at him. Or decide he never wanted to see him again. Maybe he doesn’t want to see him anyway and he was just really, really drunk last night. It hadn’t seemed that way, but like, Louis doesn’t _know._

He decides to go. Niall’s waiting for him anyway, and like, the drive back to his flat isn't exactly long but it's a ways, and there's also the fact that he really wants to cry. So.

As he slips down the ladder and out the door, shoes in hand and clothes rumpled and ill-fitting over his body, still sticky with paint, he thinks about the things he had said to Harry the night before, when they had been messing around with the Christmas crackers.

_You only want me because I’m king._

_What if I was nobody, and had nothing?_

He wonders if this planet spins in reverse, if it spins both ways at the same time and if that’s the big bad secret that nobody knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tysm!  
> Come yell at me in all caps on tumblr, it's fun, I promise: [tekhnicolor](http://tekhnicolor.tumblr.com/)


	3. Adagio For Two Pianos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry finds Louis again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a bit shorter than I'll usually be posting (I think for the most part they'll be between 10k - 15k ! :O :]), but oh well. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> And again, if I've screwed something up so terribly, please PLEASE let me know. I don't have anyone beta-ing this so it's all me over here, heh.

Louis quits his job.

It's been two weeks, and he hasn't seen or heard from Harry Styles, not that he's actively trying to reach him or anything. He hasn't even spoken to Niall about that night, about the rest of the conversation he had had with Harry's friend. He doesn't want to know, and he doesn't care.

He's mad, actually, and for some godforsaken reason it feels really fucking nice. It's so much better than feeling nothing at all, than sitting around in his shitty flat, heart gathering dust in a corner like an empty leftover container no one has yet bothered to throw away. 

He isn't even mad at Harry though, is the thing. It was one night, and they had been drinking, and Harry had made certain they hadn't actually done anything they might have potentially regretted. The boy literally had zero obligation to tell Louis anything, still has zero obligation actually, and even though that's mildly infuriating, it's true. Sure, Louis had thought they got along quite nicely together, thought that maybe they could have been something more than a one-night whatever it had been, thought that—

Fuck it all, Louis had thought they could have been everything. He's an idealist at his best and quixotic at his worst, and that's just the way it is. 

God does it make him feel unstable. 

The point is though, that as much as Louis had wanted there to be something mutual between the two of them, Harry doesn't owe Louis shit. And that makes Louis really fucking mad. 

Not at Harry, of course, but maybe at the universe, for being its usual dick-headed self and teasing Louis with everything he could possibly want before taking it all away at the very last second. That's just . . . it's such a dick move on the universe's part, seriously. Who does shit like that? There's an inkling sensation in the back of his head suggesting that this is his own fault, that he could have waited, could have stayed and talked to Harry the morning after, could have tried to figure things out, but quite frankly he isn't listening to it at all because he's really fucking angry and the feeling is actually pretty motivating.

He _quit_  his  _job._  

Which is. That's a big deal, kind of. He's been working at a fucking Waitrose for the last year, doing absolutely nothing but stumbling out of bed and into a half-uniform, punching at a cash register and eavesdropping on whining customers before falling back into bed a few hours later. And now—

Now he's jobless, which is. Cool. It's cool. The point is that he let himself stop doing something that was making him miserable, and that he had actually been brave enough to walk into his manager’s office and tell him he was quitting. Which honestly shouldn't be that difficult because people do it all the time, but it was for him. It was bloody terrifying. His hands had shaken the entire time. 

He had smoked a whole pack of cigarettes that day, and it hadn't helped.

It’s just another one of the ten thousand things he isn’t going to think about, right, because his hands have been shaking constantly for nearly two years now and then just the other night, at that party, at Harry’s party, they had _stopped_ , and it had felt so natural he hadn’t even noticed it at first. It hits him suddenly that he had actually forgotten what it felt like to be calm, had started taking for granted the fact that he was always jumpy and shaky and on-edge, and now that he’s been reminded of what it feels like to be . . . well, to be content, really, to be _happy,_ now that he’s had a taste of it he sort of wants to get that feeling back. He’s scared shitless of not being able to feel that way again, but like, he definitely isn’t going to tell anybody that. He’s just going to. Well. He’s just going to figure it out. 

He needs a new job, which is why he's here, across the street from the cafe his friend Allan works at, in a little bookstore he knows is owned by a little old lady who collects spindles. It's creepy, really, like the Sleeping Beauty tale come to life straight from the pages of _Brothers Grimm_ and skipping right over the Disney rendition, but he supposes he isn't exactly one to judge. He has a lot of sisters, okay, and so maybe collecting porcelain dolls as a child had been something inevitable.

The little chimes above the door clink as he opens it, the wood beneath his feet creaking as he steps into the shop. He's been here plenty of times before, already knows which shelves belong to which genres and that old Mrs. Singer has a strict no-phones policy that she enforces by giving people beady-eyed glares from beneath the brim of an ornate derby hat. He already knows that Shakespeare has a whole bookshelf just for himself, right next to the books on Art History, and that the science fiction and fantasy sections tend to get mixed up a lot of the time but that they really shouldn't be. 

 _There's a definite distinction,_  Mrs. Singer had informed him one afternoon. He has no idea how they arrived at the topic.  _Possibility verses impossibility, my lad._  

Louis had taken two shuffle steps to his left in order to stand directly in front of the fantasy section, in front of the impossible, and flashed her his best grin. 

 _Of course,_  was all she had said, shaking her head at him, her wide-brimmed hat flopping about.

She really is the endearing sort. Louis is fairly certain she'll give him the job.

He wonders what his family would think if he told them, if they'd be happy for him or if they'd be asking why he isn't doing something better with his life. After all, he does have a degree now. Shouldn't he be on some rung of some ladder somewhere, climbing swiftly toward the top, future plans all laid out in front of him? Shouldn't he be the next Tolkien or J. K. Rowling or Robert Frost or whoever? Shouldn't he be something? He thinks their response would probably tend overwhelmingly toward disappointment, toward frowning and pointing out how much better his life could have been if he had just stayed in California and followed in his dad's footsteps, and so he decides not to tell them. His mom's got enough on her hands anyway, doesn't need her oldest child's problems added to the rest of the pile, doesn't need to worry about him. Worry. Hah. God knows Louis does enough of it for himself these days. 

He finds Mrs. Singer in the back of the shop where he usually does, spinning away at her . . . spinny thing. She doesn't notice him at first and so he clears his throat, fiddling with one of the buttons on his shirt. He never wears button-ups, ever, but like, he's trying to make a good impression here. So. 

"Louis!" she exclaims, and she says his name like Lewis, the _s_ pronounced. "How are you today? Haven't seen you in a while."

Louis exhales on a soft chuckle, moving his hands to slide them into his pockets before realizing the black jeans he's wearing today are far too tight to fit anything into, including his legs almost. This morning had been a struggle. He had wanted to dress nicely though, and not just because of the whole job search thing, but also because he felt awake and alive, not to mention ready to fight something, for the first time in ages, and he was tired of wearing joggers and recycled old t-shirts. 

"Been a bit busy, I'm afraid," he shrugs, scuffing the heel of his shoe against the floor. "Work and writing and all that." It's a lie. It's such a lie. He hasn't been doing anything. The last two weeks have consisted of him mostly going on walks at weird hours and forcing Niall to bring him pizza on a biweekly basis. He has been writing a lot though, so he supposes it's not entirely a falsehood. Not that he's actually been writing anything good. It's mainly just ranting. Which. Figures. 

Mrs. Singer goes back to her spindling. "Yes, yes, of course. What can I do for you?" she asks, and Louis has a vague suspicion that she knows what he's about to ask. 

"I saw the sign on your door, and I was just wondering . . ." He scratches the back of his neck. "I just . . . I've been looking for a new job and stuff and I—"

"Yes, Louis," she interrupts, and Louis blinks. "Yes, you can have the job. Been waiting for you to ask. Thought you'd never come around."

And that. Louis was not expecting that, but it's nice. It's nice to know that someone has him factored into their life, even if it's only in a small way. 

When he thanks her and leaves, it's with a book he's bought,  _The Collected Poems of T. S. Eliot,_ and he thinks:  _I will not measure out my life in coffee spoons._

Thinks:  _I dare disturb the universe._

It's harder than it sounds. 

He thinks about Harry on the tube ride and then the walk back to his flat. It's only one station west of the bookstore so it really isn't too far of a trip, but his mind can't help but wander anyway, back to the way Harry's soft painter's hands had felt against the dips and curves of his body, how he had traced over him like someone would trace a finger down a page of print, trying to find where they had lost their place. There had been a moment, or two or three, during that night in which Louis had felt like he had found it, like in the last couple of years he had gotten dizzy and sidetracked and distracted and then all of a sudden he was picking up where he had left off, tapping his finger on the page with a little aha and starting to read again.

A boy with curling hair passes him in the street, and Louis trips, toe of his shoe catching in one of the cracks on the sidewalk, before he's catching himself and continuing on like nothing had happened. And yeah, he thinks, it’s kind of like that.

He's starting to feel guilty about leaving Harry that night, because if Harry's friend spoke to him at all it means that Harry probably knows that Louis knows, which means he knows why he left, which means he probably thinks Louis hates him for it. Which isn't true at all. It's just. 

Louis doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know what to think, or what to say, or how to act. He doesn't know what he wants from Harry, or if Harry wants anything at all from him. He doesn't even know if they'll see each other again, though the answer to that question is most likely yes because apparently they have quite a few mutual friends. But he doesn't know what—if he and Harry were to start anything together—Harry would expect from him, and he doesn't know how much of that he could actually deal with. Like, if Harry even is a . . . a rent boy, or whatever Niall had said, that's fine. It's fine. Harry can do whatever he wants; Louis isn't his keeper. It's just, Louis doesn't know if he would be able to live with that. He selfish, and jealous, and petty, and no matter how much he wants to be cool with Harry's situation, he just doesn't know. He doesn't know jack shit is the thing, and he's really, really sick of it.

He's tries telling himself he's alright with it, that this is the twenty-first century after all and sex is sex and it doesn't necessarily have to be anything else, but it doesn't work in the slightest and only makes him want to cry. Because the universe hates him, apparently, and hadn't had the decency to let Louis catch feelings for a florist or a real estate agent or someone who takes care of puppies for a living.

Louis’ pretty sure this is the universe’s way of getting back at him for that time he stole all of his sister’s stocking stuffers and filled the stockings with coal instead. He’s also pretty sure Santa and the universe are cohorts. Or something like that.

He checks his phone as he heads up the concrete steps to the door of his apartment, seeing two missed calls from Niall and two from a number his phone doesn’t recognize, and then—

Then he freezes, because there’s a stranger standing on his doorstep, and—no, wait. That’s not a stranger. It’s.

“Shanie,” he says, standing very still on the top step and blinking to make sure it’s actually her. It has to be. She’s wearing practically the same thing, outfit entirely black, and she has the same boots and the same eyes and the same earring. Her eyebrows are crinkled, and she’s standing on the small square of patio just outside his door, frowning at him with her hands in his pockets. Fuck. He hopes she isn’t here to murder him or anything because he discovered Harry’s secret. Shoot, he hopes Niall is okay. He should call him back, like, now. 

Shanie nods at him and offers a half smile, but Louis’ pretty sure she’s just trying to barre her teeth at him for intimidation purposes. “Hey, Louis. What’s up?”

Louis fumbles with the key ring in his hands, trying to appear casual, like this isn’t a big fucking deal, like it doesn’t probably, most likely, one-hundred percent have everything to do with the boy he’s been crying over for the last fourteen days. Ish. It’s not like he’s been counting. “Um,” he says eloquently. “Not much? Just got meself a new job actually. What’s up with you?”

He can actually feel her eye roll, even though they’re standing meters apart. Feet apart. Whatever. Go America. 

“We’re not just not going to talk about it,” she says. “I walked all the fucks way here because I needed to talk to you and you wouldn’t pick up your bloody phone and my best friend has been a mess for weeks, so. Let me the fuck in.”

Louis does.

Shanie follows him upstairs, nodding silently at the state of his apartment when he lets her in before him, which is actually quite courageous on her part because the place looks more or less like a pigsty. Louis never cleans unless he has to. 

“Nice place,” she comments, and it only takes a second before they’re both erupting into giggles, and maybe this won’t be so bad, Louis thinks. Maybe he won’t have a mental breakdown in front of the best friend of the bloke he wants very badly to shag and also to make flower crowns for and give kisses on the nose. Holy fuck, what is wrong with him? Where has Louis bachelor-for-life-because-nobody-will-ever-be-good-enough-for-him Tomlinson gone? He’s having an existential crisis here, having a midlife crisis and he’s not even in the middle of his life yet. He shakes his head at himself, and it isn’t until he’s made them both a cup of Yorkshire gold that Shanie brings it up again.  

“So Niall told me that he told you what I told him.”

Louis blinks because yeah, he knows what she’s saying but also what?

Shane breaks into laughter again, looking at him like he’s the biggest idiot on the planet. There is a solid possibility that he is. She wipes her eyes and then the laughter is gone as abruptly as it had appeared, her eyes narrowing into two dark slits. “I kind of want to hit you,” she says, and Louis chokes on his tea.

“What?” he asks, and that should be the motto for his life or something. He should put that on a t-shirt.

“You just fucking left him,” Shanie answers, pushing her tea further away from her on the counter as if to make some sort of statement. Louis seriously considers picking it up and drinking it, his own tea mostly gone because he drinks it pretty quickly, especially when he’s anxious. 

Instead, he crosses his arms and leans a hip against the counter, pulling at the collar of his shirt. The wind whistles outside, rattling against the windowpanes. “I didn’t have to stay,” he snaps, throwing the same words he had been thinking earlier at her, only they’re in reverse now. Everything is in reverse. Now, he doesn’t owe Harry anything. Now, Harry isn’t his keeper. Shanie opens her mouth like she’s about to shout at him, then closes it and just stares, watches him under the orange lights of the kitchen until he starts to feel more than a little uncomfortable.

“What the fuck is this about anyway?” Louis finds himself spitting the words, because he can’t stand silence in an argument, always has to be in the toss and catch of words, sentiments fired back and forth. That’s how he solves things, by hashing them out, by shouting about something until it’s all laid out in front of him and he can dissect it and make sense of it. He doesn’t do well in the quiet. “Do you stalk every one of your friend’s drunken one night stands or am I just that fucking special?” He wishes he could swallow the words whole again as soon as he says them, which he supposes is one of the downsides to laying everything out without thinking too much about it first, because he doesn’t mean a single one of them, hates the way he can feel them on the air between him and Shanie, static and frantic, like they hadn’t wanted to be let out into the world and Louis had just done them some great disservice. It hadn’t even been a one night stand, because the two of them hadn’t actually done anything, and even if they had, Louis doesn’t think it would have felt that way.

Shanie’s eyes are still narrowed, her lips set in a thin line. “That’s funny,” she says, voice cold. “Harry didn’t describe you like that to me at all.”

And fuck. Louis feels like shit. He feels worse than shit, like something really, really gross that he doesn’t have a name for at the moment. Of course Harry hadn’t described him like that. Louis wouldn’t have either if he hadn’t been so angry, so confused, if his automatic response to conflict wasn’t to lash out at every available opportunity. Jesus. 

He swallows. “Okay,” he says, slowly. “Well . . .”—and he’s not even sure if he’s allowed to ask anymore, if Shanie thinks he even deserves to know—“what did Harry describe me like?”

Shanie snorts, but she’s reaching for her tea again, a knowing glint in her eye. “He said you were special, is all.” She shrugs. “And then some deep shit about how you made him feel like a king or something.”

Louis remembers feeling the same way. 

The last two weeks rewind in his mind until he’s sitting in that loft again, surrounded by confetti and Christmas-before-Christmas and eyes so deep and green they put pine trees to shame. It’s like he’s been trying to erase all of those small moments from his memory, because they had been so real and warm and breathtakingly honest and for them never have to been real at all is so much better than for them to have been lies—than for that boy with the mottled complexion, with winter cheeks kissed pink by spring, to have not felt the same things Louis had felt. That night had been like something out of a fever dream, and Louis doesn’t think he’s ever wanted anyone to want him back so badly in his life. It was never like this, not with his last boyfriend and not with any of the boys he had fooled around with in the past. Nothing was ever like this, like this steel twine caught around his ribs and tugging, pulling, yanking his body toward this boy he’s only known for an evening. There’s never been a pull like this, and the closest thing Louis can relate it to is his desperate, frantic need to write, to pour words on onto pages and answer their every calls. It’s a little absurd, actually. A little staggering.

He downs the rest of his tea because he doesn’t know what to say yet, and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Right,” he says, and then manages, quietly, “Sorry, I just . . . I didn’t know what to do. I don’t. Know what to do that is. I have no fucking idea so if you do it would be pretty ace of you to tell me right about now.” He flinches a little when the words still come out harsh all around their edges, but Shanie doesn’t seem to mind. She sighs, scooping her long, dark hair up into a pony tail. 

“Talk to him.” 

And wow, yeah, Louis has definitely not thought of that. What a novel idea. He starts to shake his head, then stops halfway and tilts it to the side instead. “Does he want me to?”

Shanie raises an eyebrow at him. “Of course he bloody wants you to. He’s been sobbing on my fucking sofa for days, mate. I’m bloody sick of it.”

Louis nods, thoughts gone startlingly quiet. “So it’s, um . . .” he clears his throat before continuing. “It’s true then, what you told Niall?”

And Jamie probably should have expected that to be a bit of a sore spot, only he didn’t, and he definitely did not expect the way Shanie’s eyes go impossibly dark, the way her jaw clenches and unclenches like he’s just done something unforgivable. Louis considers himself pretty strong—he doesn’t regularly work out or anything, just jumps rope a bit and plays footie—but he’s pretty sure this girl could break his arm if she wanted, not that he’s afraid she will. Still, he keeps his arms crossed, defensive, and shifts his weight against the counter.

“Yeah it’s fucking true,” Shanie is saying, her finger tapping away at the edge of the countertop, eyes weighing him. “You got something to say about that?”

Louis wants to roll his eyes and pull out his hair, because Jesus Christ, he understands the whole protective thing but does she really not expect Louis to have some questions about the situation? He says as much, and she just frowns at him briefly before her whole face turns passive. 

“Ask Haz your questions,” she says. 

“But you’re his friend,” Louis urges. “I think it’s reasonable for me to ask for help. I mean, I have no idea . . . I don’t know how to approach the whole . . .” he pauses, not sure if he should be forthright with the situation or not. In the end, he decides on the former. “Rent boy thing. It’s just, I like him, I do, I just don’t know . . .” He groans, and this time he does pull at his hair, tugging at one of the strands in the back because this is so frustrating, and his fingers are still shaking around the empty mug he’s holding, warm from his tea. 

He barely knows this boy, and he’s spent the last two weeks pining for him like he’s in high school all over again. Apparently, Harry has been doing the same, and that’s . . . well, that’s something, isn’t it?

“Look.” Shanie moves across the counter to the sink, depositing her mug in its basin and then turning back to Louis. “I don’t know how you feel, or how much you care about Haz—God knows why he likes you so much after one night; I certainly don’t—but the only thing I’m asking you to do here is talk to him. Because I think you owe him that much, after discovering his secret and then running off on him like that.” Louis nods, and he can see her relax a little, breathing out. She had over-enunciated the word secret, and Louis gets it. Nobody knows. Allan’s words come spilling back into his mind. The boy with the secrets. The boy with the secrets that everyone wants to be friends with, that everyone wants to figure out. Louis had found out on accident, due to some drunk gossiping between friends, and he wonders if maybe that’s why Shanie had felt obligated to come here, if maybe she’s trying to fix the mistake she had made. Man, he hopes Shanie doesn’t talk about Harry’s occupation to everyone she shares a drink with. That would be inconvenient, not to mention counterproductive. He opens his mouth to say as much, but Shanie is pushing past him, ducking out the door, a black-shaded figure waving over her shoulder and gliding away down the steps. 

And excuse him, but he took drama in high school and his exits aren't even as dramatic as hers just was. That's not _fair._

He's pouting to himself, and that reminds him of Harry's pouty face, of the stupid way he sticks out his bottom lip, and Louis—

Louis is so, _so_ screwed. 

He wants to talk to Harry. He’s going to talk to Harry. Somehow. Fuck, but his hands are shaking again. He can feel the bones in his body rattling away, and he barks out a laugh in the middle of the empty room, loud and clipped, because he has no idea what he’s doing or where his life is going and the concept manages to be both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Wiping his hands over his face, he moves across the kitchen floor and collapses into a rickety wooden chair, eyes squinting up at the ceiling. The kitchen around him is all oranges and reds, afternoon light filtering through the windows, one ceramic rainbow mug sitting on the marble countertop and one in the sink. The door is partially open still, and outside are the voices of people rushing past, footsteps on the concrete, late autumn birds wheeling through the sky. It isn’t snowing anymore, hasn’t since that night, and Louis decides that he likes the snow better than the usual London rain, likes how soft it is, how gentle. It doesn’t have anything to do with Harry, with his pale skin or his hands or how careful his kiss was pressed over Louis’ mouth. It doesn’t have anything to do with Harry at all.

Fuck. 

There are moments, Louis knows, when everything changes. In poetry, the idea is called a volta, and it represents the moment of dynamic action, of turning and paradigm shifting, of settling from one foot to the next. It’s probably not the first one he’s ever experienced in real life, and it probably won’t be the last one, or even the most important, but he feels it in every wound up coil of his body—the mid-air realization that he has already begun to leap and there’s no going back.

It’s petrifying, close enough to breathtaking. 

Louis makes another cup of tea.

 

* * * 

 

The funny thing is, as much as he wants to see Harry again, he doesn’t. He puts it off for one day, and then another, and then all of a sudden it’s the weekend—it’s Friday night—and he’s smashed and fumbling with the keys to his flat because none of his friends had been willing to leave the club early in order to help get him home. His keys fall from his hands, splashing in the puddle of rainwater between his soggy, unlaced Vans, and he doesn’t bend down to pick them up. He stands there, dizzy and shivering under the black rain, and tilts his head back to see if maybe he can eat the stars.

Suddenly it’s the weekend and being alone in a quiet flat sounds really, really sad.

He thinks of Harry then, which makes him think of Van Gogh, and then of that story people tell about how he would eat yellow paint to get the happiness inside. And he's drunk, so it probably doesn't make much sense, but he's pretty sure that even if he ate every single star in the sky it wouldn't make the emptiness go away. He's pretty sure he could swallow the universe whole and it still wouldn't be enough.

He wants to try it anyway, wants to down the universe like it's a bowl of Lucky Charms just to see what it would _do_ to him, what it would make him _feel_. Fuck, he wants to do a thousand things just to see if any of them can hold a candle up to the way Harry Styles makes him feel—like his whole body is vibrating like a plucked guitar string, like an ellipses, drawn out and waiting. 

He should have talked to him days ago. He should have met him _years_ ago.

Blinking away rainwater from his lashes, he bends down to pick up his keys, because he really should get himself in bed before he does something unthinkably stupid like call a cab to take him to Harry’s, and—

And the keys aren’t there. He licks his lips, confused, and it’s only then he notices the shadow hovering over him, just to his left.

 _Great,_ he thinks. He’s going to die, right here, right now, he’s going to be murdered two steps away from his front door and thrown into the Thames and he’s never, _never_ going to see Harry again. Not that it would matter. Harry probably hates him by now anyway, is furious at him for leaving and then avoiding him. Harry probably wants to burn him in effigy, actually. Louis sends a silent thank you to the universe that Bonfire Night is long past. Harry doesn’t need any more incentive.

“Incentive for what, Lou?”

And woah, okay. That’s. Harry is _here,_ outside Louis’ flat, holding his keys in his massive bloody hand and smirking at Louis like he’s just said something terribly amusing. He probably has. He is, after all, a terribly amusing person. And hilarious. He’s bloody hilarious.

Did he mention that he’s also drunk?

“You haven’t, but I just assumed. Most people don’t just stand outside their flats swaying back and forth like scarecrows unless they’re pretty sloshed.”

Louis stands, trying to focus his attention on Harry’s face in front of his own. It’s kind of hard, because even when he isn’t drunk Louis’ world spins like a record every time Harry looks at him. “I’m not drunk,” he says aloud. He has no idea why.

Harry’s eyes crinkle in laugher, and good, Louis thinks. Good. He made Harry laugh. Harry can’t hate him too much if he still lets Louis make him laugh.

“Sure you aren’t, babe,” Harry says, lips pursed together and big, green eyes looking incredibly serious. Faux-serious. Louis groans.

“Come on, Haz, just. . .”—he struggles for a word—“open. The door. Make it open.”

Harry laughs at that, but then he’s tucking Louis under his arm, warm and sturdy, and Louis watches while the door swings open like magic and Harry leads the two of them inside and across the tiny living room, before depositing Louis onto the sofa. It’s gentle, when he lets him go. Everything about Harry is so gentle.

“M’not sure that’s true.” Harry’s voice is quiet, and he’s blushing, and Louis wants to make an innuendo but he doesn’t.

Around them the flat is dim and quiet. It makes Louis feel like they’re wading in darkness, the two of them, like they’re two fish in a fishbowl or however that Pink Floyd song goes. There’s a pulsing blue light that fills the room and then vanishes, over and over like an underwater heartbeat, and Louis knows it’s coming from the laptop he left on the dining room table, but he likes to pretend it’s from an alien spaceship. Possibly one come to abduct both him and Harry and take them to some post-apocalyptic planet that needs repopulating. They could do that. They could definitely do that. If aliens are real, they he and Harry can definitely have babies. It’s very logical and what not.

If he’s said any of that aloud, Harry doesn’t comment. He’s standing next to the sofa and shaking a throw blanket out, and Louis honestly has no idea where that came from or why on earth he would actually have bothered to _fold_ a throw blanket in the first place when he could just as easily leave it crumpled up in the corner of the couch. There isn’t really any point in keeping his flat clean when he doesn’t have any visitors. Except—

Except Harry is here now. Harry is here, and Louis’ flat looks like a tornado swept through it. Like multiple tornados swept through it. It looks like a group of decidedly not-chill tornados threw a wild tornado party for their wild tornado fraternity brothers and then left Louis with the mess.

Only Louis is, like, every single tornado put together. That’s actually pretty impressive. Harry should be impressed.

“Are you impressed with me, Hazza?” he asks, before his brain has a chance to tell his mouth to shut up. His brain is kind of a slacker.

Harry lays the blanket over him, and Louis shivers but he’s warm, he’s so warm.

“Very,” Harry says, adagio voice low and gravely. After a minute, he adds, “I can go, if you like.”

Louis blinks up at the ceiling. “What are you doing here anyway?” It’s probably rude, but really, it’s somewhere near half two in the morning and Harry’s half a city away from his own home, standing in the living room of a boy he’s only ever met once.

He can feel Harry sit down at the other end of the couch, cushions shifting beneath Louis’ body to accommodate him.

“I don’t . . .” Harry begins, and he sounds thoughtful. “I’m not really sure. I guess I, like, couldn’t sleep and I . . . I wanted to talk to you anyway. Even if you never want to see me again I just thought there were some things I ought to say, you know?”

Louis doesn’t, but he nods. “What if I had been sleeping?”

Harry laughs nervously. “I hadn’t really thought about that.”

And Louis wants to giggle because _only Harry_. Only Harry would show up to someone’s flat at two in the bloody morning and be confused when he found them asleep. He watches the ceiling above his head for a moment, listening to the faint buzzing from his refrigerator and trying to catch the slow sounds of Harry’s breathing. The whole flat sounds like a composition, sounds like something Debussy could have written, something awash in a haze of colors and impressions but nowhere near lost—something found, something vast but careful, meandering. It’s slow and dizzy at the same time, and Louis doesn’t even think the dizziness has to do with his being drunk, thinks it has only to do with Harry, with Harry just being here, sitting at the end of his couch like his presence hasn’t just sent Louis’ entire life reeling and spinning away into the air as though he were a dandelion seed or a maple seed or something else equally as small and gossamer and caught on the wind.

There’s a joke in there about Harry blowing him but he ignores it, because he’s having deep— _profound_ —thoughts right now and he doesn’t need those kinds of puerile distractions in his life at the moment.

Instead, he wonders if it’s possible at all to miss something he’s never had. If the tall boy with his long fingers brushing against the turn of Louis’ ankle was supposed to have been in Louis’ life ages ago but the author forgot to write him in when he had meant to, if maybe that’s why Louis is falling into him so quickly, because he’s trying to make up for lost time, trying to catch up. If maybe that’s why Louis’ life has been so off lately.

Or maybe Harry is being written into his life right when he should be. Maybe it’s absolutely perfect. Louis likes the idea. He likes it a rather lot.

He closes his eyes. His ceiling fan is on, rotating lazily at the lowest speed, and it sends the little wisps of hair above his forehead flitting about like butterfly wings.

“Don’t,” he whispers finally, remembering what Harry had said earlier. He swallows, and it’s loud even amid all the white noise. “Don’t go. I don’t want you to.”

He manages to sit himself up enough against the arm of the sofa to catch the look that passes over Harry’s face then, something hopeful and unbelievably soft that makes Louis’ stomach twist up in knots. He offers a small smile in return, toying with his fingers in his lap. Harry smiles back, then laughs a little, ducking his head and biting down on his lip.

It would be awkward if it weren’t for the overwhelming warmth Louis feels all over.

“I can get you some water, if you like,” he offers. “If I’m here, I might as well be useful, yeah?”

Louis shrugs, unable to wipe the smile from his face as Harry stumbles away into the kitchen, knocking into things in the half-dark. He hears the fridge open, hears the quiet buzzing noise it usually makes grow marginally louder, and then Harry is back, hovering over him with a bottle of water. Louis’ probably staring, but he looks so good against the backdrop of Louis’ own flat that he honestly can’t help it. His hair is up in a bun again, escaped ringlets curling delicately around his ears, and instead of reaching for the bottle Louis reaches around behind him, his hand getting caught for just a moment in the tangles of Harry’s hair before the hair elastic comes loose, Harry’s long, dark hair tumbling across his shoulders and drowning half of his face in wild, unruly shadows. There are bags beneath his eyes, and he looks tired and soft and faded, like an old photograph—black, white, and worn at all the edges.

It’s the most exquisite kind of breathtaking.

“Oops,” Louis says, giving Harry his best sheepish grin as he slips the hair tie around his own wrist. He doesn’t intend to give it back any time soon.

Harry just chuckles, shaking out his hair a little before tucking some of it behind his ear. “Hi,” is all Harry says, matching Louis’ grin with his own. When Louis doesn’t say anything more, he shakes his head and sits next to him on the couch, jostling his legs a bit to make room for himself, and shakes the water bottle in front of Louis’ face. “You should probably drink something,” he says, hushed, handing it over.

Louis does. He downs half the bottle in one go and then holds it in his lap, just to give his hands something to do. He’s feeling less lightheaded now than he was a while ago, and he’s having a difficult time deciding whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Because if he’s sober it means that he and Harry have to talk, and if he and Harry talk it means everything Louis has been thinking about for the last two weeks is going to culminate into . . . something. That’s probably a good thing, but still, the open-endedness had been comforting in a lot of ways, even if it had also been nothing more than Louis doing his usual running-from-the-inevitable bit.

“So,” Harry says, and Louis swallows, looks at his hands.

“So,” he echoes.

Harry watches him for a moment, the blinking blue light from Louis' laptop turning his face brighter and then darker and then brighter again, and then it's like all of the air whooshes out of him on an exhale and he deflates, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. He covers his face with his hands. "You know I like, _like_ you right?" he says. It comes out sounding blurred from behind his hands but Louis gets the gist of it. 

"Harry Styles," he tsks. Because making jokes out of deep conversations is one of the things he does best. It's on his CV, actually. "What are we, twelve?"

Harry shakes his head, keeping his hands over his face. "I don't know what else to _say._ " The sentence is muffled again, and that won't do. Louis wants to hear his voice properly. He sits up the rest of the ways, moving slowly because he's still a bit dizzy from the alcohol, and drops the water bottle onto the ground next to the sofa. Harry starts a little at the noise, but he doesn't move, face still hidden and elbows still bent, body hunched over itself, folded up like origami. 

Couch cushions creaking beneath him, Louis shuffles forward, wrapping his fingers gently around Harry's wrists and moving his hands away from his face to get a better look at him. It startles him how much Harry reminds him of spring sweeping away winter, pastel pink blush dusting his pale cheeks, eyes green and mouth soft like rose petals, if Louis remembers correctly. Louis wants to kiss him again just to prove to himself that he _does._

“Shanie was here,” he tells him, moving Harry’s hands down and away from his face, holding them still in his lap.

Harry blinks at him briefly and then looks down. “I know,” he says. “She told me. I didn’t ask her to, like, come or anything, you—“

“I know, Harry,” Louis interrupts. “I know you didn’t, and even if you did, I mean, I wouldn’t have minded.”

Harry nods, but he still isn’t looking at Louis and it’s frustrating. “I can’t believe—“ he starts, and then stops, wiping a hand over his face and letting out an rough, nervous laugh. “It’s two a.m. I can’t believe I just . . . . Why am I still here? Why haven’t you kicked me out already?”

Louis finds himself scooting closer without really thinking about it. “Maybe ‘cause I want you here?” he offers, squeezing the hand Harry had left in Louis’ lap. Harry brings his other hand down and gives Louis’ a small squeeze in return.

“Are you sure though?” he asks, eyes wide, and Louis knows this is his out. He can take it, and run with it, and Harry can leave, and Louis’ life will stay exactly the way it is now: quiet and average and uncomplicated and—

And miserable. Harry makes Louis feel not-miserable.

He nods. “Yeah, I think I am.”

Harry looks at Louis then, eyes skipping back and forth between Louis’ own, and Louis can’t help but swallow at the attention. “You know what, like, what I do, right?” Harry asks him, raising his eyebrows at Louis like he’s crazy, absolutely crazy, for wanting Harry.

Louis nods again.

“And I’m sorry for not telling you,” Harry goes on. “I just . . . I didn’t know how or, like, if I even should. I wasn’t even going to come, was just gonna let you have your space, but then I guess I just couldn’t help myself.” He shrugs, smiling to himself like he’s the keeper of his own little secrets, and Louis is so hopelessly endeared. He brushes the back of his hand over Harry’s cheek to get the boy to look at him again.

“I know, Haz,” he says. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me. And I”—he’s thought about this part, been preparing this speech in his head for the past two weeks because he knows it’s a necessity—“I’m not going to ask you to stop, so don’t stress about that. It’s your life, and your call, and I just . . . um.” He hadn’t really gotten past that point in his preparations, and so he isn’t quite sure what to say next. He wants to tell Harry that if he’s the kind of person that can separate his sex life from his romantic life then that’s totally okay with him, but he also doesn’t want to insinuate anything because really, they hardly know each other and he isn’t even sure that Harry wants that with him. He also wants to tell him that he doesn’t mind it at all, that he’ll be absolutely fine with any decision that Harry makes, but that’s kind of a lie, isn’t it? Louis has no idea what will happen if they go forward with his. He doesn’t know what to expect, or how he’s going to react. He doesn’t know a thing. In the end, he settles on saying, “We can do whatever you want, love, yeah? That’s . . . it’s up to you.”

“I can’t stop,” is what Harry says, and Louis expected that, he did, but it still stings a little that Harry didn’t even take a moment to think about it. Or maybe he did, maybe he has been over the past couple weeks and just decided that Louis isn’t worth it. Maybe— _no_. Louis has no idea what the thought process behind Harry’s decision is, not to mention he just finished telling him that he can do whatever he likes, and so Louis really needs to snap out of it.

He brushes the pad of his thumb across Harry’s cheekbone, smoothing over the contour. “That’s fine,” he says, and he’s surprised by how smooth and assuring his voice sounds, how confident. “You’re good, babe. We’re fine.”

Harry laughs, albeit brokenly, and turns his face into Louis’ palm, kissing at his life line. “I’m not,” he says— _whispers_ , like it’s a terrible secret. “I haven’t done this before. Like, done anything with anyone. Not for real. Not since I started working.” He pauses, and then his eyebrows knit together. “This is for real, right? I don’t want . . . I want it to be for real.”

Louis can actually hear the echo of his heart against his rib cage. It’s a quiet thing, hammering softly away in his chest. Harry is so still in front of him, a shadow of a boy, and in that moment Louis thinks that falling for him could very well be the easiest, most dangerous thing in the world. There are remnants of colors on his fingers and he smells like paint, and everything about him is so strange and wild but restrained at the same time, like he has all this vibrancy inside of him that he keeps locked away. He’s a dizzying mix of shameless and cautious, of reckless boy and the carefulness of being grown. That night at the party, he had been so insistent on kissing Louis, so free with his complements, but at the same time he had also observed each of Louis’ responses and reactions, had been so tentative in the way he had held him when they were together. Almost as if his eagerness had been a front for something else. Maybe, Louis thinks . . . .

Maybe he’s just as sacred as Louis is. Maybe it’s Louis’ turn to be brave.

“’Course it’s for real,” Louis says, and he leans in and kisses Harry on the corner of his mouth, because apparently he’s a sappy shit now and can’t help himself. He’s never wanted to just kiss someone before, sans implications, to just hold someone close and not have it lead anywhere, but he does now and it’s the strangest thing. The most beautiful.

He really is becoming a sappy shit, isn’t he?

Harry melts at Louis’ words and at the half-kiss, as if suddenly realizing that Louis has heard everything Harry needed to say and is still not going anywhere. That’s good, Louis thinks, because it’s true.

He keeps telling himself that he doesn’t even know this boy, but the only response his mind gives him is: I don’t care.

 _I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care_ and—

 _I_ want _to know him._

Louis does this thing, see, where he meets people and immediately starts building a character around them. He can’t help it; it’s a bit of a habit born from being a writer. But he does that with _everyone_ , all the time, especially the people who interest him the most, and he’s so, so afraid that he’s doing that again with Harry, that he’s seeing more in him than there actually is and that sooner or later he’ll find out that he’s wrong about him. That all his gentleness and strangeness was simply a figment of Louis’ overactive imagination. That he’s not who Louis thinks he is, or who he wants him to be. And on the one hand, he supposes that’s alright, because nobody is ever really exactly the person that you think they are. But on the other hand, Louis has the tendency to build people up in his head, to turn them into these towering, beautiful things and he just doesn’t know . . . . He just doesn’t know if he’s doing it again, or if this is genuinely Harry Styles.

He supposes he’s already found out about the whole Secret Life of a Rent Boy thing, so honestly, there can’t be that much else he’s missing.

He just needs to keep telling himself that this isn’t going to be perfect, that Harry isn’t going to be perfect, that he and Louis together aren’t going to be perfect. That life doesn’t work the way it does in stories.

And it’s so hard to do that because Harry makes him feel like he’s in a story, because Louis’ anxiousness always disappears when he has someone to take care of but with Harry it isn’t present at all. Because just meeting Harry for one night had been enough to get Louis out of bed every morning for two weeks, to motivate him enough to find a job and to start writing again, to make him feel excited about life for the first time in years. It’s been enough to convince Louis—almost—that life can tell stories in the same way books can. It’s been so much.

“I feel like I’ve known you forever,” Harry tells him, secretive and soft, face bathed in blue shadows. He’s been doing that thing Louis noticed he does often, where he looks down and bites his lip to hide his blush, to hide his wild grin, but he looks up at Louis now with wide eyes and lashes dark as ink and says, “Is that . . . is that weird? It is, isn’t it?”

And in the same way that Harry makes Louis feel drunk and dizzy, he makes him feel sober—focused and sharp and in-tune to all the minutia that make up Harry Styles. To the littlest things. Like the recognizable sparkle behind his eyes right now, the one that’s reminiscent of Louis’ own mantra of _I don’t care,_ the one that’s shouting fearlessly that Harry doesn’t really care either—doesn’t care if it’s weird. Doesn’t care at all.

Louis shrugs, sitting up on his knees on the couch. “Probably,” he agrees. “I’m not too miffed about it though.” He doesn’t even care that he’s starting to sound like he’s from here, not since Harry’s from here, not since something so _good_ is from here.

Harry giggles, and Louis tucks a piece of hair behind his ear, shaking his head lightly. His eyes are really, really nice. Like, Louis would even go so far as to describe them as exceptional. His lips, too. Absolutely exceptional. He finds himself drawn next to the long column of his neck, how the blue and grey squares of shadow blend together over his pale skin and turn him into something out of an Impressionist art gallery, into a collage of color and shadow, of movement and light. When Louis places his hand gently against the side of Harry’s neck, he feels the muscles there contract and then loosen, and there’s something about the sort of trust this entails that Louis finds beautiful and frightening at the same time. He drags his hand lower, to the curve of his neck into his shoulder, and then across his shoulder and down the upper half of his arm, feeling with each movement the subtle strain and relaxation of muscle. Harry sits, still and quiet, the entire time, but Louis can feel his eyes on his face, curious and careful. When his hand reaches Harry’s elbow, he wraps his fingers around it and keeps them there, drawing in a deep breath.

He wants to be reckless with Harry.

He wants to be that first week of summer.

He exhales.

“You can stay the night, if you want. I want you to, I mean.”

Harry tenses up at that, and Louis has to forcefully stop himself from panicking and his mind from going into overdrive. He needs to make sure Harry feels okay before anything else, needs to be sure that he’s comfortable and that he doesn’t feel scared or . . . or anything bad, really. Louis just needs him to be happy.

“Just to sleep, love,” he adds hurriedly, giving Harry’s elbow a light squeeze. He’ll have to talk to Harry about his aversion to sex later, because it baffles Louis, honestly, especially since sex is kind of in Harry’s job description, but right now isn’t the time. “Just sleeping, and that’s it, yeah? And if you still don’t want to, that’s fine. It’s absolutely fine, Harry. You can do whatever you like.” He squeezes his elbow again and then lets it go, trying to let Harry know with his gestures that he doesn’t have to stay.

Harry catches his hand. “I want to.” He leans in and brushes his lips over Louis’ for the briefest moment, then pulls away. “Thank you,” he adds after, terribly quiet, and Louis would have missed it if he hadn’t been staring with impressive determination at Harry’s lips.

“Do you, um,” Louis begins, drawing his eyes away. “I can take the couch, or do you . . . would you want to cuddle?” The last part comes out a bit like a squeak, which is mildly embarrassing, but Louis can’t really be arsed to care.

Because Harry is beaming at him, all remnants of his earlier hesitation absent, and Louis very nearly can’t breathe.

“Why Louis Tomlinson,” he declares, looking something like twelve years old with his tongue poking half out of his mouth. “I think I might like you quite a lot.”

Louis takes Harry’s hand in his own, and he probably looks something like twelve years old himself, nervous and giggly and blush warm as he guides Harry toward his bedroom. Everything is dark and quiet, blurry rainfall tapping against the windows of the small flat. Their fingers tangle and the sky stays dark, and Harry laughs—wild and effervescent—when Louis stares at him for too long and nearly runs into a wall.

It would have been worth it, is the thing. Harry is slow as he maneuvers behind Louis through the house, gentle and quiet, grip on Louis’ hand firm and unfaltering, and every time Louis looks over his shoulder he feels his heart skip a beat. He’s going to die devastatingly early if he keeps this up, but Harry is just . . . he’s just . . . .

He’s not _just_ anything. His smile itself is panoramic. His eyes—

 _Is it difficult,_ Louis thinks then, the rest of his thoughts falling heavily silent, _to be so very beautiful all of the time?_

_Is it absolutely terrifying?_

* * *

 

Later, after Harry has fallen asleep with his hands tucked under his chin, just as he had the last time Louis had fallen asleep next to him, Louis finds his journal.

He climbs out of Harry’s embrace and scoots up the bed until his back is against the headboard, and there’s a pack of cigarettes within reach on the nightstand but he doesn’t touch it.

Beneath the sheets, Harry’s body curves like a question mark, and Louis thinks that it’s symbolic somehow, because when he sees Harry he sees blizzards and blurry kisses and half-smudged paint, reminding him that there’s so much about the boy that he doesn’t know. He feels like he should know more, like when he closes his eyes he should be able to recall memories of the two of them from years back, like somehow they really have known each other for forever, but he can’t and they haven’t and there’s nothing but now—but Harry lying curled in Louis’ flat, snoring gently, and Louis’ hand as it scrawls out messy letters onto a page.

There’s nothing but now, and tomorrow, and that one, blue-lidded night.

Louis writes:

_Have you ever seen a boy like him?_

_Have you ever seen something so like that first week of summer,_

_when freedom comes in spades and plastic buckets shaped like sand castles,_

_in a wave crashing under the sun?_

_That is what I think of when I see him—_

_all the most beautiful, reckless things,_

_lined up at the edge of the world_

_waiting to be wild._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Knowing people are enjoying the story seriously helps me find inspiration to write :]
> 
> PS The poem at the end is my own writing, from my [writing blog](http://wordsbyjm.com/) :)


	4. The Circle Of the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis learns some things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So after this chapter it's pretty much just going to be shameless Harry and Louis in their own little world. I'm literally trying to hard here to make them, like, interact with the outside world, like their other friends and stuff, and so that was kind of what this chapter was for. 
> 
> Anywayyyyy, I'm really excited for the next chapters and I hope you are too!
> 
> (Also, I have no beta and all errors are my own. I'll likely go back to this chapter tomorrow and try to fix as many as I can, but right now I'm tired and a wee bit sick so. Hope you enjoy it!)

If Louis had thought they would have time for conversations in the morning, he was wrong. He’s hungover as fuck, Harry is gone, and his alarm hadn’t gone off because Louis had completely forgotten that his new job includes Saturdays. He has work in less than an hour, and when he stands up to make his way to the restroom his whole world spins. Just imagining what hopping on the Tube will feel like makes him want to vomit.

It’s nowhere near as disconcerting as the thought of Harry being _gone_ though. His side of the bed is still rumpled, and as Louis stumbles groggily into the shower he imagines the soft downpour of water against his skin is actually Harry—the cotton of his shirt, the silky strands of his hair, the fleeting warmth of his fingertips. He can’t imagine why Harry would have left without saying anything, not when they had finally come to some sort of steady understanding only just last night. He wonders if he’d done something while drunk to scare Harry away, but unfortunately his hungover self is cursed with perfect recall and he can’t seem to pinpoint anything out of the ordinary from the night before. Maybe Harry changed his mind about Louis last minute. Maybe he saw Louis’ shitty flat and decided none of this was good enough for him. What if he . . . no. No no no no _no._

Louis’ mind goes there anyway, the little fucker. Makes him think, what if Harry had left because of _work_? Because he had a client? Like, he could be with a client right now and Louis wouldn’t even know. He hadn’t said anything at all about having to work today, but just . . . _what if_? What is Louis supposed to do?

He mentally slaps himself. He’s supposed to treat the situation like the grown adult person that he is and not freak the fuck out about it, that’s what he’s supposed to do. Obviously. It’s just sex anyway, and it’s Harry’s job, and Louis can handle that.

Or at least, Louis _wants_ to be able to handle that. He hasn’t even touched Harry yet—not like _that_ , not with intent—but he knows that the moment he does he won’t be able to stand the mere thought of someone else’s hands on him. He closes his eyes as he scratches shampoo into his hair, and it’s like looking through an open window into the future, the way he can see himself years from now, lying alone in his bed under the dark covers, framed by four mahogany bedposts and waiting up for Harry to return from his latest client. That might be a bit of a dramatic visual, but Louis isn’t good with sharing, never has been and probably never will be, and he knows what sharing Harry is going to feel like, knows that if they go through with this he’ll end up with his face pressed into his pillow more often than not, spilling tears over something he has no control over. Because it’s Harry’s life, and Harry’s choices, and Louis agreed last night that if they pursue this relationship, Harry’s job is something he’s going to be okay with. Pretend to be okay with. Semantics, whatever.

He finishes washing his hair and then just stands there under the spray of shower water, scalding hot and just the way he likes it. The sliding glass doors fog until they’re impossible to see through, and it makes Louis feel safe and hidden away and like he could stay here forever if he could somehow just magically pay the water bill at the same time. He tips his head back and lets the warm spray run over his face and down his chest, and when the water rolls over his ears it’s quiet and calming, the world dissociated from him for the time being.

When he had first come overseas for university, he nearly had to drop out during year one because of the anxiety it had caused him, the panic attacks that bloomed without warning in the middle of classes or halfway through social gatherings. Mornings had been the worst, waking up hours and hours before his first class even began just so he could take a hot shower and attempt to control his breathing. It had been terrible, and chaotic, and sometimes even the ring of his phone had sent a spark of panic to his chest reminiscent of rounding a corner and coming face to face with someone holding a gun to his head. It wasn’t him, was the thing. It wasn’t Louis, loud, brash Louis Tomlinson who loved his friends and loved loud music and spontaneity. And though he had gradually gotten over much of the nervousness, it had never entirely left. It’s still there, seeping into his bones every time he goes out with friends, scratching at the back of his neck whenever he has class or work. It’s quieter, but it’s there.

He’s tired now too. Tired and, though he’ll never admit it out loud, sad. Sometimes the stupidest things make him sad, like running out of milk for tea or realizing he’s used all of his spoons and needs to run the dishwasher again, like opening his little closet to see his keyboard sitting folded up in its case and gathering dust. Sometimes too, even happy things make him sad. One year, when he had had enough money to fly home for Christmas, he had had to excuse himself from dinner with his family just so he could go sit in the garage and cry a bit.

His grandma had found him, inevitably, because she has a weird sixth sense for things like that, and he had leant against her shoulder and just sobbed.

The worst part was that he hadn’t even known _why._

He turns off the shower and towel-dries himself before slipping into a pair of black skinnies and a grey t-shirt, thankful that his job at the bookstore doesn’t have much of a dress code. He hasn’t shaved in days, but he’s starting to like having a small smattering of stubble across his face. Makes him seem older, more mature, like he’s got more of his life together than he actually has.

It’s raining again, and the sky outside his bedroom window is a typical London grey, rectangles of hazy silver sun slipping through the open blinds. The pale light would have looked beautiful splashed across Harry’s face, Louis thinks, would have made him seem even softer and more gentle than he already is, eyelids fluttering open under the morning sun. It’s strange to think that he hasn’t actually seen Harry wake up yet, that he has no idea if he comes awake slowly with long yawns and stretches and smudges of pink on his cheeks, or if he starts awake in a single sudden movement, goes from unconscious to all-aware in a mere moment. Louis wants to find him and drag him back into his bed just so he can put him to sleep again and then study him as he wakes, wants to write it all down to preserve it, and to keep it safe.

He doesn’t even have Harry’s phone number, he realizes then. He huffs at himself for his incompetence and scrubs a finger over his eyebrow, blinking back sleep before wandering into the kitchen.

Where he finds Harry, hair loose and humming along to The Script as he scoops scrambled eggs from a frying pan and onto a plate.

Louis stops under the arch of the hallway, and blinks. The rush of relief that floods his body is probably something he should be worried about, only he isn’t.

_You’re here,_ he wants to say, but what comes out instead is, “I love this band.”

Harry turns, smile spreading slow across his features when his eyes fall on Louis. It makes Louis squirm a little, makes him feel like there’s an itch somewhere that he needs to scratch, because having Harry’s undivided attention is like nothing else he has ever experienced. “The Script, yeah, they’re amazing,” Harry says, and his smile doesn’t wane in the slightest. “I made you eggs. Hope you slept well.”

Louis knows he’s just standing there looking ridiculous, but seriously, this boy just spent the night cuddled up with Louis in his bed, and now he’s standing in Louis’ kitchen cooking him breakfast while his phone plays one of Louis’ favorite bands ever in the whole wide universe. That’s got to be fate working there, or something like it, because shit like this doesn’t just happen to anyone.

Louis shakes his head, laughing quietly to himself. He steps slowly into the room, crossing the floor barefoot until he’s across the kitchen island from Harry. “They’re great,” he says, voice slow because he’s still a bit in a daze and half-hungover. Harry just shrugs and smiles like it makes perfect sense to him, setting the plate he’s holding down on the counter before Louis and following that up with a mug of tea and two slices of toast. “Fuck, thank you,” Louis continues, climbing onto one of the rickety wooden stools his friends had gifted him when he had first moved here. “And yeah, I did, yes.” He’s staring, he knows, eyes blinking back and forth between the plate in front of him and Harry across from him, who’s poking idly at his own plate with a fork, but it really is the strangest thing to wake up to. Harry cooking in his kitchen and his favorite song playing on Harry’s phone. And how did Harry know that Louis likes his eggs scrambled? How did he _know_ that?

He takes a bite of his eggs and shakes his head, smiling shyly when he catches Harry looking at him.

He’s wearing nearly the same thing he was at the party Louis first met him at, a long-sleeve button-up—buttoned to the top button—skinny jeans, socks, low boots, and a coat, this one light mint green, and Louis wonders if he has an entire closet set aside for weird, pastel-colored coats. He also wonders why Harry’s so dressed up, and why he didn’t notice it last night, and why for the love of God Harry wears his shirts buttoned up all the way. It’s ridiculous, honestly. Makes him look like he’s five.

“I have work,” Louis tells him, bringing his mug to his lips. It’s one of the rainbow ones, and Louis’ stomach flip flops. He rubs at his jaw. “Totally forgot about it last night. I shouldn’t have been out so late.”

Harry nods, sipping his own tea. “S’alright,” he shrugs. “I should probably get going anyways. It was, um . . . .” He trails off, biting on the inside of his cheek, and then says, “I can, um . . . . Can I visit you at work? This afternoon, maybe? I just, I don’t have much going on today, but if you don’t want me to then obviously—“

“Harold,” Louis interjects. Harry stops his rambling and brings his eyes to Louis’, a sheepish expression on his face. He looks really _good_ against the backdrop of Louis’ flat, and Louis remembers thinking the same thing last night when he had been lying back on the sofa, Harry hovering over him in the dark. Harry just fits, is the thing. He fits in Louis’ living room and he fits in Louis’ bedroom and in his kitchen. He fits against Louis’ body and his hand fits in Louis’ hand and the way he laughs fits so beautifully next to Louis’ laugh. It’s a bit strange, probably, because they still don’t know each other too well, but there it is. Harry fits, and Louis wants him to.

He imagines a world where it’s possible to drag someone back in time, one where time is a two-way street and he can grab Harry’s hand and pull him along until they’re stumbling breathless into the past, into the empty days Louis spent alone and filling those days with Harry—with morning breakfasts and paintings and summer-sun smiles, with cheeks dimpled in laughter.

“It’s perfectly fine if you visit, Haz,” he says, scooping his last forkful of eggs into his mouth and downing the last of his tea. He checks the clock on the wall to his right, noting the time. He should probably leave. It’s his first week of work still, and even if Mrs. Singer already knows him well enough, he wants to make an impression anyway. And not get fired. That would be splendid.

He hops off the stool, carrying his plate and cup with him and depositing them in the sink to wash later. Harry is watching him when he turns around, eyes wide and curious.

“Okay,” he says. “Where do you work at?” He’s leaning back against the island, body lean and long and face morning-soft, and now that the counter isn’t between them Louis wants to touch.

“Bookstore,” Louis answers, moving forward. “It’s called Fable’s. Cross the street from this little café at Charing Cross.” He’s really glad he doesn’t have to tell Harry that he works at Waitrose anymore, but it’s also weird thinking that Harry has no idea where he works or where he has worked. It’s a sudden and jarring reminder of how little time they’ve spent together.

Of how _much_ time they have to make up for.

Harry’s hair is loose around his shoulders, and Louis still has his black hair elastic on his wrist from when he had stolen it last night. He closes the distance between them in a few small steps, Harry standing still in front of him, large green eyes blinking owlishly and lips slightly parted. Louis is willing to bet he’d taste like tea if he kissed him right now, like Yorkshire, smooth and strong and cedar-y. He’s quite a bit taller than Louis, and the height difference is more striking up close than it had been when they were sitting across the counter from each other. Louis files that interesting piece of information away for later.

Harry is still and quiet, frozen in place as Louis reaches behind him and scoops his hair up in his hands, before reaching down with one of them to tap gently on Harry’s hip.

“Turn, baby,” he whispers, letting his words echo softly against the kitchen tiles, and Harry does, Louis maneuvering his arms a bit so as not to let go of Harry’s hair. When Harry’s finally turned around, back to Louis, Louis presses the briefest of kisses to his shoulder before slipping the hair tie from his wrist and trying Harry’s hair up in a bun. It’s baby-soft in Louis’ hands, and Louis kind of wants to braid it like he used to braid his little sisters’. He kind of wants to thread flowers through it and see if they bring out the pink in Harry’s cheeks.

“All done,” he says, and when Harry turns back around he’s biting his lip, grinning and shaking his head at Louis.

Louis scrunches up his face and looks away. “What?” he asks, feeling his cheeks begin to grow warm with a blush. The overhead lights are dim and orange.

“Nothing, just,” Harry starts. He laughs a little, and Louis looks up at him solely because he doesn’t want to miss the way his eyes crinkle when he does. He looks like he’s about to say something else, but then he just shakes his head again and dips to plant a light kiss on Louis’ cheek. “Nothing,” he repeats, and Louis wonders what nothing really means.

They’re standing in front of each other in the middle of Louis’ kitchen, sink filled with dishes and The Script sill spilling from the speakers of Harry’s phone on the table, and it’s pouring rain outside but inside it feels like summer. The air between them is heater-warm and fuzzy, the silence filled with smiles and muted lyrics and the _zinging_ sensation Louis feels suddenly when Harry reaches for his hand, tangling their fingers together.

“You’re glowing,” Harry says, and Louis coughs out an awkward laugh.

“Why on—“ he starts, quirking an eyebrow at Harry and wondering what he could possibly mean, but he stops when his mind finally registers the lyrics of the song that’s currently playing. “Oh,” he says, facial features smoothing out. He rolls his eyes at Harry, trying playfully to tug his hand away from the taller boy’s, but Harry only pulls him a step closer.

“’And we don’t even know where we’re going,’” Harry sings along with the music, terribly off key and terribly beautiful. “’But I’m standing with you and I’m glowing.”

“Shut up,” Louis mutters, but he’s laughing as Harry tugs his body close for a hug. “It’s not even my favorite of theirs.”

“What is then?” Harry asks, and Louis tucks his face into his neck.

“Superheroes,” he mumbles, feeling exposed, like he’s just given a vulnerable part of himself away. He thinks he has actually, because favorite songs say a lot about people, a lot more than favorite colors or lucky numbers do.

Harry hums and then says, “Hold on,” before beginning to waddle over toward the table, Louis still within the circle of his arms and stumbling backward with Harry as he makes his way across the kitchen. He can’t stop the giggle that escapes him as Harry nearly trips and sends them both tumbling to the floor, only catching them both at the last second with a huff and a pinch to Louis’ waist that makes him squeak.

“Haz, I have work, love, I have to—“

But Harry is having none of that apparently, pinching Louis’ waist a second time and squeezing him closer as he fumbles with something behind Louis’ back. It’s his phone, Louis realizes, when the first notes of Superheroes begin to sound in the room. He squirms out of Harry’s grip.

“You,” he says, still breathless from laughing as he pokes at Harry’s chest with a finger, “are a dork, and I have to go to work.”

“Do you really though?” Harry pouts, and Louis has look away when Harry reels him back in because he’s supposed to be stubborn and obnoxious and Harry makes him want to melt. He wriggles around a bit in Harry’s arms, unsure what to do with his hands before deciding finally to just rest them against Harry’s chest.

“I really do,” he replies, decidedly not looking up, because he knows if he does he’ll see Harry’s face, so close to his own, and he knows he won’t be able to do anything other than kiss him then, under the little kitchen ceiling and the orange light.

He feels Harry’s lips at the junction of his neck and shoulder, warm and unmoving. Their bodies are so close, Harry’s arms tying them together like a chord of rope used to tie ships to dock. “Okay,” Harry says, breath warm. He’s shaking a little under Louis’ hands, and Louis can’t help but think of all the things he hasn’t told him. “Okay. I should go then too.”

And Harry goes, and Louis goes, and the winter rain stays.

At the bookstore, The Script streams through the overhead speakers.

 

* * *

 

Like a proper schoolboy with a crush, the first thing Louis does when Harry shows up at the bookstore that afternoon is put his number in his phone.

They lie on the floor in a little room in the back, past the spindles and the shelf on Shakespeare, Harry on his back with his arms and legs sprawled out like a starfish and Louis on his stomach, chin propped up in the palm on his hand. He wants to tell Harry that his green coat makes him look like a garden, like flowers could grow in the bed of his chest, but it seems silly, it seems puerile and silly and so he doesn't say anything, just lies on the carpet and watches the rise and fall of Harry's chest—his coat, his Oxford, his white undershirt all moving in a metronomic rhythm. He must be a bit hot, wearing all of those layers, but he doesn’t move to take any of them off and Louis keeps his mouth shut.   
  
Louis should probably be up front, actually, but even though it's Saturday it's a slow day, and Harry is here and Mrs. Singer is not, and there's a little silver bell on the front desk if anyone does happen to need his help. They've been lying here for a little over an hour, telling stories and jokes and giggling into their hands like children, all while the rain tumbles outside against the roof and the walls, white noise keeping the space they're in quiet and sacred.  
  
He learns that Harry likes to cook, that he worked in a bakery when he was younger and was hit on by all the old ladies working there. He learns that Harry's family is from Cheshire, that he has one sister and a step-dad and a mother named Anne who he doesn't see as often as he likes but whom he calls frequently. He learns that Harry likes flowers, that he likes pastel colors and indie music, but that he also has a soft spot for cheesy, sentimental pop love ballads. He learns that his best friend is Shanie, and that they grew up together before moving to London for uni. He also learns that although Harry doesn't go to uni, Shanie is in her last year and that Harry is more than a bit well-known at the school, that he has quite the reputation among the university students and among his so-called friends for being rich and mysterious, which Louis thinks is more than a little ridiculous because Harry is anything but mysterious.

He learns that Harry stares at him, a lot, with a creepy frog-like stare that’s impossible to ignore.

He learns quite a few things about Harry, really, but the one that stands out to him the most is this:

Harry is soft.

He isn’t soft in a bad way, in the way people these days throw the word around and use it to mean weak and frail and scared. He’s soft like spider webs are soft, like cashmere is soft and the music you fall asleep to is soft. He’s soft when he reaches out slowly across the carpet and touches two fingers to Louis’ writs without looking at him, soft when he hums along to the songs on the playlist Louis made, soft when he licks his finger and waggles his eyebrows and turns the page of a book, carefully, carefully carefully. Softly, softly, softly. And because he’s soft, he’s brave. Or at least that’s what Louis sees when he looks at him, when he hears him talk about how scared he was moving to London, how angry he was when his dad left, how terrifying the idea of living on his own instead of in a dorm with other university students was.

There’s something left unsaid between his words though, because no matter how much they talk about their lives Harry never lets the conversation stray toward his work, and it’s such an obvious thing, such a blatant, large part of his life that it almost feels to Louis like there’s a massive hole in their conversation, like something is so plainly missing. Like instead of an elephant being _in_ the room, someone had carved an elephant-sized chunk of space out of the room and left a gaping hole in its place.

Louis knows though, that if Harry isn’t ready to talk about it, then he isn’t ready, and that’s that.

“What’s your favorite book, Haz?” he asks, splitting the silence like it’s a new hardback, pages brittle and stiff.

Harry rolls onto his belly so that he’s facing Louis, both of them now propped up on their elbows. He makes a show of it, groaning and flopping about until he’s settled, and Louis rolls his eyes fondly.

He smells like paint, and vanilla, and Louis loves that, but he also wants to roll him around in the dust of his—he calls them _his_ now—bookshelves until he smells like Louis, until he smells like paperbacks and penny dreadfuls.

Harry shrugs. “I like happy books. Because then when life is sad you have this world you can go to and be happy in for a little while.”

Louis snorts, but there’s something about what Harry said that hits a little too close to home. “Fuck that,” he decides, rolling over onto his back and crossing his arms behind his head, body languid and warm. “I’m going to be happy forever.”

His eyes are closed but he peeks one of them open just in time to see Harry bark out a laugh, and yeah, he thinks, this is probably a good enough place for forever to start.

 

* * *

 

There are more things that Louis learns about Harry.

He learns that Harry only ever wears jeans and long-sleeves.

He learns that Harry has a two-door mini cooper that he never, ever drives.

He learns that Harry eats an indecent amount of healthy food but can, with kisses, be persuaded to share a four-cheese pizza.

He also learns that Harry smells always either like paint or vanilla, and that if he smells like vanilla too strongly in the mornings it usually means he spent the night with someone. They don’t talk about it a lot, although Louis knows they should, knows they’ll have to have a bigger conversation than the one they had that night at Louis’ flat, when Louis had been half-drunk and tired and they had both been so desperate just to know how the other felt. It really isn’t too bad though. Harry will stop by Louis’ work during the day, will take a nap in the back room sometimes in the afternoon because he doesn’t sleep much at night, and Louis will drive to Harry’s house once in a while when he’s off work.

Harry’s house is amazing. Louis didn’t have nearly enough time to explore during that first night at the party, but he does now. And Harry says it’s nothing, says it’s too big and too cold and too empty, but to Louis it’s everything. Most of the house is the first floor, sprawling with open rooms divided only by Greek-looking pillars and tall, rounded arches. There’s a living room, and a formal living room, a dining room, a formal dining room, a bar, a sun room, and an entertainment room with sliding glass doors leading to a pool in the back. And then there’s the kitchen, the room where Louis first saw Harry, which is just as spacious and open as the rest of the house, white cupboards with gold knobs lining the walls above the counters and a line of mason jars with light bulbs in them hanging from the high ceiling.

Upstairs is smaller, but still worth writing home about, Louis thinks, because upstairs is where Harry’s art studio is, and even if it isn’t the place he paints in most of the time, it’s the one where he keeps most of his artwork, and it’s the one where they danced, and so it’s pretty fucking special to Louis. Not as special as the little house in the backyard though, which was—he learned from Harry—originally meant to be a pool house, but still special.

He hasn’t started calling it home yet, but it feels like he could.

The two of them are nearly inseparable, which should be annoying except that Louis never feels better than when Harry is with him, when he’s laughing beside him and knocking elbows with him while they’re sitting practically in each other’s laps. There's something about Harry that draws Louis to him, that sends him rolling closer like a slow summer tide. He wants to tell Harry everything and so he does, wants to share everything that happens to him with Harry and so he does, wants to see the way his forehead crinkles and his eyes widen and his little white teeth come out to bite down on his lip when he's listening attentively, nodding along to whatever Louis is saying and offering quiet insights and comments here and there. It makes Louis feel important, like the things he has to say and the things he cares about are so, _so_ important, and no one—not even his mother—had ever managed to do that for him until now.  
  
He listens to Harry in return, of course, listens and files away certain bits and pieces of his stories and his likes and dislikes for later, so that he can use them to surprise him or to do something nice for him. Smiling, happy Harry is by far the best Harry, and Louis meant what he said earlier. He's going to be happy forever, for always and into infinity, and he's going to do it by making Harry smile at every opportunity.

It’s nice, this thing between the two of them. It’s comfortable and easy, and Louis has never clicked so quickly with someone in his life. He only has one wish, and that’s that Harry will let him in a little bit more, because Louis knows he’s a meddler but he can’t help it. He hates not knowing things about Harry’s life, hates that there are secrets the boy still can’t share with him.

Then again, he hasn’t told Harry about his panic, hasn’t told him that he feels antsy and on-edge whenever Harry isn’t around. So okay, maybe they both have secrets. They’ve only known each other for a few weeks now so that’s fine, it’s _fine,_ only—

Only Louis really fucking hates it.

There are a very few select times in Louis’ past when he had felt immediately and unwaveringly that some piece of his life had fallen exactly where it was meant to fall, and so he knows instinctively what that feels like.

It feels like, “Aha, there you are! I’ve been looking for you.”

Feels like _yes,_ and _finally,_ and _at last._

It feels like Harry Styles, reaching across his dining room table to steal a spoonful of cereal or frowning at the scrabble board at two in the morning because Louis insists that _vibey_ is a word (it is). It feels like Harry’s sleepy voice and lazy limbs, feels like the back room of a bookstore and the endless London rain.

It feels really, really good, is the thing, and Louis is determined to keep it.

He gets a Thursday off from work, and invites Niall over.

Niall had wanted to meet Harry properly for weeks, and Harry had been shy about it but declared one morning that he wanted the same, and so Louis had gone and called Niall up, insisted he come over for dinner and Fifa and bad jokes, and Niall had agreed. Louis had almost called the whole thing off afterward, because he had woken up in Harry’s bedroom where everything was dark and warm, and a taxi ride across town and back to his own flat had sounded proper miserable.

“Why can’t we just have Niall over here, Haz?” he had wined, trying his best to tangle his legs around the blankets to keep Harry from pulling them away.

“Because,” Harry had said, grunting and finally managing to drag all of the blankets onto the floor. It’s the only sure-fire way to get Louis out of bed, honestly, because he gets cold easily and needs his blankets. “Because you already told Niall we were meeting at your flat, and because I need a shower and I like your shampoo better than mine.”

Louis had grumbled something alarming British about it being a bloody awful day out, and Harry had cooed at him and called him his “little California boy,” to which Louis had chucked the nearest pillow at his head, and that was that.

Now Louis is nervous, because he’s pretty sure Niall is still not entirely over the idea of Harry getting paid for sex, but the lad is generally fairly easy-going, and Louis thinks that if he and Harry weren’t sort of a thing now Niall wouldn’t mind in the slightest. He imagines it must be difficult, knowing the boy your best mate is sleeping with is also sleeping with a crew of other people. Not that he and Harry are actually sleeping together—they haven’t gone any further than deep kisses and the awkward avoidance of morning wood on the mornings that Louis wakes up in Harry’s bed with Harry actually still in it—but it’s not like Louis has told Niall that.

He probably should. He probably, _really_ should, because when Louis doesn’t talk to people about things they end up eating him alive.

All he says when Niall arrives at his flat though, is, “Took you long enough, you lazy twat. Get in here.” And then proceeds to drag him by his shiny blonde hair into the kitchen.

Where Harry is sitting at one of the stools, long legs dangling in a pair of dark blue skinnies, hair loose and freshly curled from the shower, pale pink Oxford buttoned up to his neck. Louis actually freezes in place, his hand on Niall’s hair losing its grip as he just stands there, blinking his eyes at the boy in front of him. The last he had seen Harry had been just before shoving him into the shower, when he was tired and there was still sleep-crust at the edges of his eyes, and Harry had looked good then, of course he had, but now he looks like a soft winter sunrise, washed pink and white by the morning sun. His buttoned shirt is tight around his shoulders and waist, and Louis is mesmerized by the way his narrow hips sway to the song spilling from his iPhone speakers, something soft by Norah Roberts. Come Away With Me, Louis thinks.

And fuck.

Fuck fucking fuck shit fuck.

He really, really wants to grab Niall’s hair again and shove him right back out the door, because Harry looks soft and edgeless—blurring into the pastel world around him—and Louis wants to kiss him until he’s panting, kiss him until he can’t _breathe_. He wants to race to his room as fast as he possibly can and tear his sheets from his bed, wants to wash all of his bedding, once and then twice, just so he can press Harry into the soft, clean sheets and see if he blends so seamlessly into those as well. Louis knows he would. He just, he _knows_ it. He can see Harry’s pale skin at his wrists and the side of his face, and he just knows Harry would sink right into his white sheets as if he were a part of them.

Man is it making his head spin.

He wishes Harry would wear less clothing sometimes, because, like, Louis loves his clothes a lot but it’s just strange, that even for bed he wears long bottoms and long-sleeve shirts when all Louis really wants to do is _see_ him. If he can’t touch him, he at least wants to see him. Not that he’s going to ask. But still.

And he’s about to turn Niall around and toss his little Irish self back outside, he truly is, but the blonde is barreling forward, skipping past Louis and into the kitchen, and Louis has to give up on that plan as quickly as he fashioned it.

“Heya, mate,” Niall is saying by the time Louis has tuned back in. “Lou here says you’re absolute shite at video games so I came over to give my ego a proper boost.” He erupts into cackles after that, and Harry follows him, setting back the mug he had been holding and reaching to tie his hair back.

It’s only then that Louis steps forward, twining his fingers delicately around Harry’s wrist and applying a light pressure, a gesture that could be taken as simply saying hello. Harry seems to get it though, an amused smile on his face as he hums and moves his hand away, leaving his hair down around his shoulders. Louis looks to Niall to see if he noticed anything, but the boy is drinking from Harry’s mug and then coughing into his shoulder, shoving the tea away from him like it’s poison.

“Not even _I_ like it that sweet, bro,” he says, still coughing. “That’s like, really, insanely unnecessary.”

Harry just laughs again, light and beautiful, and it warms Louis on the inside.

“S’good to meet you,” Harry says, and Niall hums in agreement, giving Harry a once-over before clapping Louis on the back and turning to the living room. “Well, I hope you boys are ready for a proper beatin’.” And then he’s cackling again, and Harry is looking at Louis, cheeks warm, before they’re both tumbling after Niall onto the sofa.

Niall wins all but one of the games, and it should be embarrassing but it isn’t. It’s fun and jovial, and Louis feels giddy, the weight of his boy against his shoulder throughout the entire afternoon.

After Niall leaves, Louis splays his body over Harry’s on the couch cushions, letting his limbs go limp like a jelly fish.

“You’re a menace,” Harry complains, but Louis can hear the fondness in his voice. He lifts his head up, resting his chin on Harry’s chest.

“You like me,” Louis asserts, and Harry laughs.

“I like you,” he agrees easily, voice deep and slow the way the hours of the night turn over. One of his hands reaches up, a blur in Louis’ vision, and smooths Louis’ hair back over his forehead. “I like your eyes,” Harry says.

Louis giggles. He giggles like a proper school girl and then groans when he hears himself, dropping his face back to Harry’s chest in order to hide his blush. Harry’s hand keeps moving however; Louis feels it pass heavily over the back of his neck and the ridges of his spine, coming to rest, warm and solid, on the small of his back.

He doesn’t realize he’s stopped breathing until he feels Harry’s thumb digging lightly into his back, hears him say, “Breathe, Lou,” and then, “I’m not finished.”

Finished what? Louis gulps in air, turning his head so that his cheek is resting on Harry’s chest. He doesn’t know what Harry is talking about, but he can hear the deep rumble of his voice as their chests are pressed together, can feel it dark and heavy and rippling throughout his body. He feels almost unbearably close to Harry in this moment, because they haven’t done anything other than kissing as far as those sorts of milestones go, and he doesn’t want to pressure Harry but at the same time he doesn’t know what Harry wants.

He squirms a little, trying to rearrange his body in a way that won’t make his hard-on as obvious, and then stills, his senses reduced to the feeling of Harry’s hand running over his spine, pausing intermittently at the valley in the small of his back. His ratty t-shirt has ridden up a bit, and every once in a while he feels Harry’s fingers brush warmly over his skin, and it’s so much and not enough all at the same time.

“I like your eyes,” Harry repeats, scratching his fingernails against Louis’ shirt as he moves his hand. “I like your mouth. I like it when you laugh with me—even at me sometimes. I like your friends. I like that you let me paint you that one night, that you didn’t make me feel weird about it.” Louis feels the briefest of touches against his temple then, keeps his eyes closed as Harry’s fingers dance there and then his lips, gentle and quick, brush against his skin. “Thank you for that,” Harry whispers, and his voice sounds raw and rough at the edges. His hand on Louis’ back stills, pinky resting just over the hem of his sweatpants. “I like that you let me be me, without questions, because I know sometimes that’s hard.”

And fuck. Louis squeezes his eyes closed. It’s not just hard; it’s fucking grueling. Louis wants to know about Harry. He wants Harry to be able to talk to him, to _want_ to talk to him. So he closes his eyes and he keeps them that way, tries to match his breaths with Harry’s and focus on the sensations he’s feeling as opposed to the emotions.

“I want you to always be free to be you,” he says finally, a quiet breath against Harry’s chest. “Whatever that entails. You know that, yeah?”

Harry hums, and Louis isn’t going to cry, he isn’t. It’s difficult though, feeling like he’s known this boy for years and at the same time having to accept the fact that they haven’t, that there are still so many things for them to work through. It’s difficult because Louis wants to throw himself into this but he doesn’t want to mess it up.

He wants to get it so fucking right.

And it's like, Louis doesn't think that he's in love quite yet, but he's in love with the idea of them, in love with what they could be.

And that’s something, isn’t it? It’s definitely something.

He curls his arms around Harry’s long body, sliding them under his back, and lets Harry hold him until he falls asleep.

 

* * *

 

On a Wednesday, Louis takes Harry to the movies. It’s a proper date, with handholding and clandestine glances, and when he drops Harry off at his doorstep he kisses him chastely on the lips and turns to leave.

Harry rolls his eyes and tugs him inside by the collar of his shirt.

 

* * *

 

On a Tuesday, Harry takes Louis to Hyde Park.

Under a clear London sky, Louis learns that none of Harry’s artwork is actually realist, but _impressionist,_ and that the sunset painting Louis had made fun of the first night they met had been abstract.

He learns that Harry likes impressionism better, that he likes it the best and that he paints it the most.

“Am a proper impressionist now,” Harry says, easel set up against a backdrop of greens and greys and curious distant passersby.

Louis sprawls out on the picnic blanket to watch him, because there’s nothing like _this_ Harry, fingers smudged with paint and grinning from ear to ear. His eyes flit back and forth from the scene in front of him to his canvas, and Louis is captivated by the way his hands work so deftly, mixing colors in thick, short brushstrokes and blurring together all the edges of his little painted world. He ties his hair up with a ribbon when he paints, and today the ribbon is white, offsetting his dark curls beautifully. Everything about him calls Louis to touch, to reach out and brush a hand over his jaw or his cheekbones, just to be a part of everything that Harry is.

“Will you come to California sometime?” he asks without really thinking it through. His mind is hazy with drowsiness and warm from the first sunny day they’ve had in weeks.

Harry stops his painting, brow furrowing and paintbrush frozen in place an inch from his canvas. “Do you mean that?”

Louis nods, because he really does mean it, even if the question itself had come from some subconscious part of his mind. “I do, yeah.” He sits up, crossing his legs beneath him. Now that he’s started thinking about this, he can’t stop. London Harry is amazing, of course, but California Harry would be something else. Dressed in jean shorts and ratty t-shirts, his soft body stretched lazily across the sand, everything warm and yellow and bright. “You could paint the beaches,” he continues. “Like, the palm trees and the ocean and the little surfing people. We could get a hotel on the beach and just . . . stay there.”

Harry seems to think about the idea for a moment, and then he smiles, dipping his head down and laughing. “I’d love that, Lou. Someday, yeah?”

The way he says it sounds like he thinks it will never happen, like it’s nothing more than wishful thinking, and Louis doesn’t like that.

“I’m serious, Haz,” he insists. “You would love it, and I could show you everything, and we’d have such a good time. We could get a little van, drive up and down the coast and get lost, not that you really can because, like, north and south are pretty easy with the ocean right there and what not, but it’d be sick. I could take you in the summer.”

Harry’s looking at him curiously, like Louis is a strange creature and he hasn’t quite figured out if it’s okay to approach.

“Haz, I’m really not joking, you—“

“I’d love to,” Harry interrupts. His voice quiets. “If you really mean it. And if you, like, still want to by summer.”

Louis throws a tuft of grass at him. “Of course I will, you twat. Stop being maudlin.”

Harry raises his eyebrows, and there’s a smudge of green paint across his left cheekbone that Louis is going to lick when they get home. Maybe even before then. “That’s a big word, Lou. You sure you know what it means?”

Louis flips him off and throws himself backward onto the blanket, bringing his sunglasses down over his eyes.

“I’m a writer, _Harold_. Of course I know what it means.”

He doesn’t need to see Harry to know the face he’s making, a dimpled smile as he bites the inside of one of his cheeks.

He says, with a little puff of breath and flick of his ribbon-tied hair, “And I’m Vincent Van Gogh.”

Louis hopes he isn’t. He really, _really_ hopes that he isn’t.

 

* * *

 

On a Sunday night, Louis meets Harry Styles the _artiste._

Louis likes being taken care of, okay. Usually, he’s more of a take-care-of-other-people type of person, but once in a while, just once in a while, when he’s especially fidgety or anxious, he likes having someone else look after him.

Which is why right now, wandering around this godforsaken party Shanie had invited him to, he really, really just wants to find Harry and cling to him like an overgrown child.

He doesn’t know anyone here, and the vibes he’s getting from the party-goers are pretentious and standoffish, but Shanie had insisted he and Harry come this evening, to some university dorm party the fashion students were throwing. He hasn’t caught sight of Harry since he arrived though, tired and stumbling through the common room without bothering to get himself a drink. He just wants to see Harry, to maybe hold his hand a little and see if he can coax a couple minutes of cuddling out of him, and then he wants to go home and sleep for at least fifteen hours.

He’s a grown-ass man with needs, okay, and if he can’t get sex he sure as hell is going to get cuddles.

Rolling the sleeves of his t-shirt higher on his shoulders, he scans the room. Everyone here is dressed to the nines, which Louis supposes makes sense because the party is being hosted by fashion students, and he feels wildly out of place in his ripped skinny jeans and Black Sabbath Iron Man t-shirt, tattoos littering his forearms. Louis knows Harry has tattoos as well, only the boy is always wearing bloody long-sleeved shirts and Louis still has not had a chance to properly appreciate them. A travesty, truly.

The building he’s in is dark and grainy, drowned in slow, throbbing music that makes his chest ache in a funny way. He thinks he could probably just go home, because he’s already said hello to Shanie and he doesn’t know anyone else here, but Harry’s house is closer and he’d much rather go there instead. Harry hasn’t given him a key yet though, and so he has yet another reason to find Harry.

It’s really bloody difficult, is the thing, because the lights are low and the people all look like shadows stumbling into one another. He thinks he catches a glimpse of the boy once, but when he catches the persons arm it’s only some stoned rock-star-looking fellow Louis doesn’t know.

He’s tired, and bored, and much too old for uni parties anyway, and he’s making his way toward the nearest exit when finally he sees something in the darkness—a familiar head of curls floating off to his right, and he knows it’s Harry immediately because the black Oxford he’s wearing is buttoned all the way up. Fuck, but he looks good. His hair is loose and brushed and he looks freshly showered, dressed head to toe in black except for his boots—sparkly gold things that Louis would actually let walk all over him. He waves a hand, standing on his toes because even the guys here are wearing heels, Christ.

It takes a minute or two, but Harry finally sees him, face breaking out in a smile and then—

And then it falls, and he turns his head quickly and disappears into the crowd.

What the fuck?

What was that? Why would Harry not be happy to see him? He knew he was going to be at this party, didn’t he? And Louis doesn’t think he’s done anything to offend Harry enough for Harry would be giving him the silent treatment, so just . . . _what?_

He doesn’t have any idea what’s going on, and that’s frustrating because it’s usually his specialty. He’s ace at knowing what’s up.

A hand catches his elbow, and _thank God,_ he thinks, because he hates being in the dark with Harry, hates not knowing what the boy is thinking when he disappears for hours on end and then pretends that nothing is the matter.

When he turns around though, it’s not Harry, but Niall, who is shouting something indiscernible in Louis’ ear over the noise and tugging him toward a ring of people.

“Lou, this is Keith, Jenna, Lana, and Nick. Mates, this here’s Lou.”

Louis blinks, a dizzying line of faces swimming in front of him. Yeah, no, he’s not doing this right now. He turns to say as much to Niall, but Niall is looking at him expectantly, big, puppy dog eyes and Irish charm and ugh, fine. Fine. He can deliver a few niceties to Niall’s newfound friends before looking for Harry. That’s—it’s _fine._

He bares his teeth and shakes the people’s hands, forgetting their names almost as quickly as Niall had rattled them off to him. He hasn’t had much anxiety at all tonight, mainly focused on finding Harry, on that fuzzy warmth he knows will pervade him as soon as he does, but now he can feel the nerves starting to creep in, his hands shaking the moment he finishes introductions.

“You a student here?” Nick asks. His forehead is tall and his quiff taller, and Louis can’t help but think how much nicer Harry’s curls are, soft ringlets that curl around his fingers when he tugs at them. He bets Nick’s hair wouldn’t do that.

“Nah, Lou here’s an alum,” Niall grins, dragging Louis close with an arm around his shoulders like he can sense Louis’ nervousness. He’s a bit drunk, and a lot heavy, but he still looks out for Louis like a brother, which is something Louis had never had before Niall. It’s nice. Louis smiles and nods along to what the Irish lad is saying, turning to look over his shoulder at the crowd. Harry’s in there somewhere, he knows. What if he’s looking for him too? Maybe Louis’ eyes had been playing tricks on him in the dark and Harry really is happy to see him. He should probably just go. He—

“Looking for ‘arry?” one of the girls—Jessica, Jasmine, who knows—with a French accent asks suddenly, and Louis feels his whole body freeze. He and Harry haven’t talked much about whether or not they’re actually a thing, and so he isn’t sure what to tell her. God, his hands are shaking. He needs to leave, like, now, but he’s pretty sure excusing himself to go to the bathroom right now would be equivalent to answering the girl’s question.

“Everyone is, aren’t they?” the other girl asks, saving Louis from having to answer. He leans further into Niall’s body, jostling a little when someone pushes by behind him, and lets out a relieved exhale.

“’Course they are,” the first girl says. She stands on her tiptoes to peek over Louis’ shoulder, like she’s looking for Harry herself, and Louis is. He’s mildly confused. Why is everyone looking for Harry again? “He’s rich and fucking attractive, owns that _massive_ house everyone’s always blabbing about.” Her eyes shift from somewhere over Louis shoulder to Louis, scanning him up and down, and yeah, Louis is so ready to get out of here. “I bet he’d snatch something like you up right away, hun. Wouldn’t he, Lana?” She winks, nudging the other girl’s—Lana’s—shoulder with her own, their arms bare in the halter-tops their both wearing, eyes sparkling with something slightly more acerbic than mischief.

“Definitely,” Lana nods. “Though I hear he’s been more into the birds these days. Did you see the blonde he had with him earlier? Been on his arm all night, I swear—“

“What the fuck?” Louis actually can’t keep the question from spilling out of his mouth. He honestly has no idea what they’re going on about, but they’re standing in front of him talking about Harry like he’s some kind of _thing_ , some kind of game or reality television show used for their entertainment.

Niall squeezes his waist and whispers, “Uh, Lou, maybe we should—“

“He’s an artist, what do you expect?” Nick is saying.

“An overrated one at that,” the other boy adds, mouth curling in what looks to Louis like disdain. “You know people only buy his art because he’s pretty.”

“And because they want him to sleep with them,” Jenna says.

“Do you reckon’ he fucks like he paints?” Lana asks in a frenzied whisper, and the conversation turns to a blurry amalgam of words that Louis instantly ignores. He has no idea what the fuck these people are talking about, but it’s starting to make his head wheel and his stomach churn because they have absolutely no right to be talking about Harry that way—Harry, with his sunshine eyes and dimpled cheeks and goofy smiles—as if they know him. He’s about to say so too, and probably clock someone right in the face just for good measure, but Niall is pulling him away, maneuvering him through the crowd and away from Nick and Lana and Jasmine-whatever-her-face-is.

“They’re fucking liars, Ni,” he hears himself say, and his voice sounds steely and cold. He can hear it ringing above the music, above the voices and the shouts and the scuffled feet on floors.

Niall nearly yanks his arm in two trying to pull him into the next room. “I know, mate,” he agrees. “I’m sorry. They were dicks. I didn’t know—”

“People don’t just get to say stupid shit like that, do they? I feel like they should be arrested, or kicked out, or fucking something. Like what the hell?”

“Louis.”

“ _What_?” It comes out a lot snappier than he intended, but he’s mad, alright? He’s really fucking mad.

He’s scared too, scared that it might all be _real_ , that those people in that other room might be right. Because he knows Harry, he does, but he doesn’t _know_ him. They haven’t talked about so many of the important things yet and fuck, Louis is really fucking scared. Shit. Shit shit shit. He’s reverting to his university years, heartbeat picking up speed and stomach twisting into knots. His palms are sweating and he needs to _get out of here now._

“Louis,” the voice repeats, and he wheels around, ready to tell off the person behind him for absolutely no reason other than that he feels like his entire world is fucking falling apart.

And it’s Harry.

Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry.

It’s all Louis thinks about as Harry’s face floods his vision, as his figure fills every line of Louis’ sight, as his palm hovers barely-there on the small of his back, guiding him slowly out of the room they’re in and up a flight of stairs.

By the time Louis can is thinking straight again, they’re alone in a room with a dresser and a pile of cardboard boxes.

It’s a little room, and the boxes take up nearly all of it, stacked in the corner like children’s building blocks. There’s a single window on the far wall, and though half of it is covered by the cardboard, Louis can see a sliver of the sky, black as ink in the window frame. He imagines it could leak into the room, spill around them and swallow them up and leave them breathless—gasping.

He imagines the way Harry might hold him, if it was the end.

“Fuck,” Louis says, before anything else, scrubbing a finger over his eyebrow.

Harry’s fingers twitch at his sides; he looks like he wants to reach out but isn’t sure. Louis wants to scream at him that he can.

“Lou, are you . . .” Harry starts. “Are you alright?”

Louis huffs out a bitter laugh. “Fuck’s sake Harry, you wouldn’t know, would you?”

He doesn’t exactly mean it, and he’ll probably feel guilty about it later, but for now he relishes the way Harry pales at that, taken aback.

“I didn’t mean—“

“Didn’t mean what, Harry?” Louis interrupts. He wants to say more but he doesn’t. Instead he sets his jaw, leans back against the dresser drawers, and waits.

Harry looks away then, and Louis watches the dip and rise of his Adam’s apple as he swallows. “To avoid you.”

“Alright,” Louis says, and then bites his tongue and waits for Harry to explain. Normally, he’s the one to yell in an argument, but Harry makes him want to be quiet, makes him feel like he _needs_ to be quiet. Because the idea of saying something to Harry that he’ll regret later is absolutely terrifying, and the idea of hurting him with something he says but doesn’t mean is even worse.

Harry pulls at the cuff of his probably-Egyptian-bloody-cotton sleeve. When he looks back at Louis, his eyes are misty at the corners, and every remnant of anger Louis was childishly clinging to vanishes.

“I didn’t want you to see me,” Harry whispers, voice scratchy and wet, and it’s like he can’t help himself then—the way he closes the distance between them, long body curving around Louis’, making himself small just as he had when they had danced in his studio. Louis’ hands find his hair almost like muscle-memory, petting it behind his ears and kissing the top of his head. The collar of his shirt is being stretched by Harry’s hands, balled into tight fists against Louis’ chest, but Louis couldn’t care less. The skin at his neck is warm with Harry’s tears, and there’s nothing in the world that matters so much as this boy, nothing in Louis’ _life._

It’s not a scary thought, not even a little bit.

Louis swallows, willing his voice to come out with some semblance of calm. “Didn’t want me to see you what, Haz?” he asks. “What didn’t you want me to see?” Harry doesn’t do anything but sniffle, and so Louis kisses behind one of his ears. “You can tell me, you know. You can tell me anything, yeah? Told me about your work and I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Harry laughs at that, a quiet watery thing that grips at Louis’ heart. “I just . . .” he says. “You _saw_ me. I was walking around, with people, like. You know.”

Louis doesn’t know. Louis is, in fact, epically confused. “You’re allowed to hang out with other people, you know? If that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t know why—“

Harry huffs and buries his nose further into Louis’ neck. “I was _flirting,_ Lou. You _saw_ me.”

And oh. Okay. That’s different. That’s definitely different than _hanging out._

Louis tries to mask his surprise with a cough, his grip on Harry becoming rigid. “Um, why?”

“It’s like.” Harry pulls away, wiping at the corners of his eyes with his cotton-covered wrists, and Louis keeps his arms around the boy because he can’t seem to let go, not even after Harry’s confession. “I’ve been doing it forever? When I first wanted to be an artist, I got some advice from this professor, and he said that, like, to be an artist you have to be a character. Like, make yourself a brand sort of like musicians do and what not and I . . . like, I didn’t believe him exactly. But then I dropped out of uni and for some reason that made people interested in me? I don’t know, Lou, it’s all so silly now, I can’t stand it. And then . . . .” He trails off there, eyes falling closed. Long, dark lashes splay feather-light over his pale cheeks, and Louis notices for the first time that Harry is wearing eyeshadow—sparkly and gold to match his boots. Fuck, but he’s ruined for this boy. He doesn’t think it will matter what Harry says next; Harry could have done anything, and Louis still won’t be able to let him go.

Louis draws Harry closer to him, hands on the small of his back. The room is dark and silver-blue, shadows dancing around the two of them as the clouds pass by the moon outside the window, tangling them together. “It’s okay, babe,” he says, soft as the night. “Keep going, yeah?”

Harry nods, looking down. “I didn’t really mean for it to happen,” he begins. “I dropped out of school and started painting and then I . . . I got my _job_. And, um, I got a lot of money from that and from there everything just sort of happened on its own. I was like, rich and stuff, and I guess people thought I was interesting because of that.” He stops, breathing in shakily before continuing, one of his hands slipping down to Louis’ waist. “I built it up on purpose after that, my image. Started going out with people and, like, doing things with them. Attending stupid parties. Sleeping around. I mean, I thought, I’m doing this for work anyway, why not do it for my art? So yeah, I just . . . I sort of became this person everyone talked about at the university, and then around some parts of London a bit.” His eyes dart up again, meeting Louis’, wide and frantic. “You haven’t looked me up, have you? Like, on the internet? Please say you didn’t. Oh fuck, I can’t—“

“Haz, Haz, it’s fine,” Louis wraps his arms tightly around him, Harry’s forehead falling to rest against Louis’ collarbones. “I haven’t, babe, and I won’t if you don’t want me to.”

“I don’t,” Harry says.

Louis kisses his shoulder. “Okay, then I won’t. See? Not so scary.” He pauses. “But, like, you know you can tell me things, right? I know I say that a lot but you really can. That’s what I’m here for.”

Harry is quiet for a while after that, and Louis listens to the soft way their breathing fills up the room, sweet and gentle, like a lullaby compared to the booming drumbeat echoing downstairs. He doesn’t think Harry knows the extent of what he feels for him, and he doesn’t know how to say it. He wants to write a poem. Hell, he wants to pull out his dusty old keyboard and write a song.

Something like: _I’ll build a house for you._

Like: _I’ll build a_ life _for you._

_I want to be what the_ sun _is to the_ flowerbeds _for you._

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, gentle into the collar of Louis’ shirt. “I’m sorry I’m so messed up.”

Louis loves him so, so fiercely.

“ _Baby_.” He threads his fingers through his hair, weaving them smoothly from his scalp down to the ends. “Don’t be. Please don’t be.”

“I won’t do it anymore,” Harry says. “I promise . . .I promise I’ll try not to. I want this, Lou, I do. I want us. I don’t . . . I never wanted to be that person in the first place, but I thought if it helped my art—“

“And what if it does, Harry?” Louis has to ask. “What if it does help your art? What then? Is it still worth it?” Are _we_ still worth it?

“Yes.”

Louis lets out a breath. “Okay.”

“It’s not me anyway,” Harry admits. “I’m lying. To everyone, to myself. I know I am, it’s just really hard, you know? I love my art, and I want to be good.”

“You’re not good if people are only buying your art because they think you’re fucking eye candy, Harry.” Fuck. Louis probably shouldn’t have said that. Just the thought that there are people out there in the world—there are people _downstairs_ —thinking about Harry like he’s nothing more than a pretty face and a good fuck makes Louis sick to his stomach. He can’t imagine what it does to Harry. Louis probably, really should not have said that.

Harry is looking down, and Louis tips his chin up to look at him, fingers small the way they are whenever they’re anywhere near Harry. “I didn’t mean it, Haz. I’m—“

“No, you’re right,” Harry says. He catches Louis’ hand in his and holds it between them, fumbling with Louis’ fingers until they’re entwined with his own. “You’re right,” he exhales. “And I’ve known it. I think I’ve always known it. Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For still being here, with me, right now.”

“Harry.”

Harry doesn’t move. He’s blushing, looking down at their tangled hands.

“Harry,” Louis repeats.

“Yeah.” Harry looks up.

“Kiss me.”

Harry does, but not before grinning wide and easy, his arms moving to bracket Louis’ body against the dresser, and Louis melts into him like the winter melts into the spring. His mouth is warm and velvet-y, tongue heavy in Louis’ mouth. The kiss doesn’t feel forgettable right now, but Louis kind of hopes that it is. He hopes that their future is filled with so many kisses that this one is nothing more than one out of a thousand, each one better than the last, that Louis kisses Harry and Harry kisses Louis so many times that the only time he’ll ever remember this kiss is in the middle of some winter night, when he dreams about it and wakes up in the dark, before curling into the curly-haired boy lying next to him and dreaming about the next kiss.

Harry licks into his mouth, and Louis shudders, twisting his hands in Harry’s hair until Harry gets the idea and _does something._ He hears Harry’s groan seconds before he feels large hands at his waist, hoisting him up onto the dresser and stepping in between the parenthesis of his legs. He thinks that’s kissing Harry is like turning a dial: where everything is cold, now there’s only warmth; where everything was dark, now there’s only light; where everything was bleak, now there’s life, blooming like the blossoms on Cherry trees, blushing pink and white with awaking. With waking up.

Harry wakes Louis up.

“Fuck, you’re so _much_ , Harry.” He’s panting, breathing out disparate words—words which only sound harsh and unwieldy against Harry’s soft lips. Louis wants to kiss him forever. He never wants to speak again. He’ll be like fucking Ariel and give up his voice for the rest of his _life_ if it means Harry will drag his tongue along the roof of his mouth the way he’s doing now, tasting Louis, making himself forever a part of the words that will come out of his mouth. Because anything Louis says now, anything ever, will pass over all the places Harry has touched. All the words that ever come out of his mouth will now taste distinctly of Harry—he knows it. He absolutely knows it.

“Louis, I want . . .” Harry’s breathing hard into his mouth, hands squeezing at his waist, and Louis knows what he wants, the same way he knows he’s Harry’s, the same way he knows Harry is his.

And the same way he knows Harry won’t let himself have what he wants.

Inevitably, Harry steps back. His mouth is bitten red, his cheeks pink, the green of his irises flecked with gold, set off by the eye shadow. The room is cold and full of whispers.

“Hazza, babe, do you wanna maybe tell me,”—he swallows—“tell me _why_?”

He doesn’t need to elaborate, because Harry knows too.

“It’s hard,” Harry tells him. “It’s hard to know what’s real when I’ve done this for so long as a job. I don’t . . . I feel like I’ve made it _less_ somehow.”

Shit.

Louis’ heart is actually going to break.

“No,” he says, and he’s shaking his head violently, tugging Harry back between his legs by his lapels. “You couldn’t do that, Haz. You could never, _ever_ do that.”

“Louis—“

Louis captures his lips in a kiss. It hurts, this one, teeth clacking like dishes against a countertop, but Louis loves it _more._

“It’s not possible,” he whispers, harsh, like if he could shove the words down Harry’s throat he _would_. “You . . . that’s not fucking possible.”

“Okay.” Harry nods, frantic fingers bruising Louis’ hips, and it’s not fucking enough.

“Here.” Louis takes Harry’s hand and places it over Harry’s heart, over the little pocket at his chest, and covers it with his own. “Whatever’s in here, is real. Got it?”

Harry nods, mouth covering Louis’ again and again and again, and Louis’ _hands_ aren’t just shaking—his whole _body_ is shaking, vibrating from head to toe with want and with anger and with the most terrifying, unspeakable sadness for this boy who loved his art so much he broke himself apart for it.

Broke himself into so many pieces.

Louis holds him, and he’s the spring. He kisses him, and he’s the summer. He wakes up beside him, and he’s the fall. He watches him leave, and he’s the winter.

Louis thinks of looking up at sunlight from underwater, how the light fractures on the surface and almost dances, the circle of the sun warped and shimmery.

He thinks of fragmented things, of how much more beautiful it is to have seams where the light can leak through than it is to be monochromatic.

 

* * *

 

They don’t sleep together that night.

Harry paints Louis again with the tireless touch of an artist, and it’s almost like he wants to prove something. Like: _I can still be good for you._ Like: _let me at least_ try.

Louis pets his hair back over and over, eyes watering because Harry makes him _cry,_ and says:

_you are, baby, you are you are you_ are.

The shutters are open and shaking against the rain, and there is moonlight spilling onto Harry’s dark bedspread, and Louis chokes a sob into Harry’s shoulder, body shuddering like the riptide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you !! Your feedback is always welcome and appreciated- love you all so much!


	5. Buttons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Falling in love isn't easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys. Hope you enjoy this chapter! I'm totally on my own in this, so feel free to point out any mistakes. You're all amazing. (:

Louis spends more time at Harry's house than he does anywhere else. 

"It's too big," Harry had told him once, a distant sadness in his eyes. "Sometimes I'll bring my paintings into the kitchen just to, like, try and make it less empty."

"I'm sorry, love," Louis had told him, and Harry's sadness had melted into a smile.

"S'not so bad, with you," he had said. "You make it less quiet, I think."

"Are you saying I'm loud?"

Harry had shrugged and gone back to tossing unseemly amounts of vegetables into his blender. 

"I'm saying you _belong_ ," is what Louis thinks he had said next, but his words had been swallowed by the deafening buzz of the blender.

Louis hopes he had heard them correctly.

Harry's right, of course, about the house being big. It's massive, and there are days when Louis stumbles down the stairs, morning hair a mess and torso swimming in one of Harry's button-downs, and comes to a full stop in front of the refrigerator where a note is pinned—something along the lines of, 'had to work, be back soon .xx' or 'breakfast is in the microwave. have fun at work. sorry I had to leave last night. :(('—and Louis honestly can't breathe. There are days when the bigness of the house feels more like emptiness than like a playground, which is the way it feels when Harry is with him, vast open spaces perfect for silly games of tag and dances composed of sloppy footwork. 

There are days when Louis wakes up and Harry is gone, and there are days when Harry leaves before Louis even falls asleep, and Louis isn't sure which is worse. He wonders if the boys—girls too? Louis hasn't asked—Harry sleeps with know that he has someone waiting for him at home. Honestly though, he tries not to think about it too much, tries to focus his attentions and thoughts on Harry as he knows him, on the Harry in front of him, the one with stupid pastel coats and fingers stained with paint, with dimples and a shy smile that he always pairs with a high blush and a duck of his head. Fuck, but Louis can't help it sometimes. His mind is frantic, it's wild and nervous and sometimes he'll be holding Harry's hands in his lap and he'll wonder if the people he visits at night ever ask about the paint, if they have any idea that the blue stroke along his pinky finger is from that one time Harry painted Louis' arms entirely blue.

"To make you look like those Avatar people," he had said. 

Louis had kissed him quiet.

Sometimes, Harry will scrub at his hands for hours to get rid of the paint, and Louis will be secretly glad when he can't wash it all off. 

He doesn't like thinking of the symbolism in that. He doesn't like thinking he's something Harry has to hide away.

The thing about Harry though, is that he doesn't seem to mind his job. He talks about it rarely, but Louis has learned a few things, like that Harry works through a fairly prestigious agency and that said agency has been incredibly good to him in the past. He'll tell Louis with a shrug how it isn't a bad job, and Louis will be on the verge of tears all the way to the bookstore, because how can Harry be so nonchalant about something that eats at Louis like corrosion?

It's shit, is what it is. Because Louis can't do the separating-sex-from-feelings thing that Harry apparently can, and so on days when there's a note pinned to the refrigerator Louis will freeze at the bottom of the staircase before crawling back under the covers, the paper crumpled in his fist and his nose pressed into the pillow.

He hasn't cried over it yet, not while he's been alone anyway, because if he's going to be dramatic then he's damn well going to have an audience for it, but he has started saving the notes. Each of them is written in Harry's chicken-scratch handwriting on a sticky note—pastel, of course—and Louis tucks them away between the pages of his journal, smooths their wrinkles out and wriggles their edges into the crease of the journal so they'll stay moderately in place. 

He doesn't know why he does it, because the notes make him  _sad,_  but once he starts, he can't bring himself to stop.

Sometimes they're sweet:

_wish I could have stayed all night tonight. see you tomorrow at work?_

_bought you some yorkshire gold. I know, I'm the best. have a good day, lou. sorry I had to leave again._

_gonna miss you. wanna binge watch dr who when I get back?_

Sometimes they're song lyrics: 

_'you're my sunshine in the morning and my fireworks at the end of the day' .xxxxx_

_'I want to hold your haaaaaand.'_

Sometimes they break Louis' heart:

_you fell asleep while the tv was on last night and I kissed your forehead. I don't know how anyone can be so beautiful when they sleep. I don't know how anyone can be so beautiful at all. sometimes I wish I could write the way you do because then I could explain things to you better. oh well. I just made tea with too much sugar and I still can't bring myself to leave you. help ????_

_I think leaving the room while you're sleeping in it is probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do .xx_

_are you ever sad, lou? I hope not. I hope I don't make you sad. please have a good day for me. don't let the spindle lady prick your finger haha <3_

They don't discuss the notes when Harry comes home, but on the days when the notes are a little sadder, Louis kisses Harry a little harder. 

They're going to be okay.

They've got this.

Louis has those two sentences on a constant loop in the back of his mind as he pulls the door of Harry's bedroom open and steps out into the hall. He can hear the rain thrumming lightly against the structure of the house, and the hallway upstairs is so dark he wonders idly if he’s woken up before the sun. The idea makes his insides churn uncomfortably, because early mornings seem to be interminably associated with loneliness for him, with cigarettes and shaky fingers and blank journal pages. Pausing at the top of the steps, he tugs nervously at the shirt he’s wearing. It’s Harry’s, a wine-colored jumper which Louis has never seen him wear, probably because the boy only ever wears long-sleeved button-downs, buttons threaded through their loops all the way to his collar, high on his throat. Louis pulls at his own collar, the scoop-neck soft against his collarbones, and pretends to ignore the revived trembling of his fingers as his bare feet patter like the rain against the staircase. 

He's expecting another note when he gets to the kitchen, taped hastily to the fridge door, because Harry has been working quite a bit lately, but what he sees instead draws his mouth into a sleepy smile. 

It's a Saturday morning in mid-December, and Harry is home when Louis makes it to the bottom of the stairs.

“Haz,” he says, the name leaving his lips on a breath, soft and treasured. He doesn’t know when his breath started leaving him at the sight of Harry, but it’s been happening a lot lately. Louis will roll over in the morning, on those rare occasions when Harry stays and Louis wakes up before he does, and simply seeing Harry’s soft expression tucked into a pillowcase will be enough to punch the breath out of him. When he hears the brief tinkling of bells above the door at the bookshop, and then sees Harry poke his mop of curly hair around a shelf, his anxiety melts away and is replaced by the heady sensation of forgetting how to breathe for a single heightened moment.

There aren’t words for it, is the thing, which frustrates Louis because he’s a writer for God’s sake. He’s supposed to have the words.

Harry looks up from where he’s mixing something in a bowl on the counter, his hair tied back but not without small strands frizzing around his head in a halo-esque manner. The windows above the sink are squares of black, the sun still far from having risen, and Louis checks the clock on the wall. Five-thirty. Fuck. He expects a smile and maybe a cheeky comment from Harry, or a question regarding his being awake so early, but instead Harry’s eyes narrow at him the moment he sees him and his lips press into a fine line. With a look of mild annoyance, Harry lays the whisk down and picks up a stack of poster boards that have been lying on the table. And fuck. Louis forgot about the little prank he had pulled on Harry last night.

He cackles loudly, hand pressed to his stomach and sleep-crusted eyes crinkling, because he knows exactly what’s about to happen. He likes pranks because of the reactions he gets from people, after all, and he’s pretty sure Harry isn’t going to disappoint him.

Harry holds up the stack of poster boards like one would hold cards up for a child in school, and Louis nearly doubles over in laughter. There’s a dick scrawled in black sharpie on the first one. It’s his finest work, if he does say so himself.

“I found this,” Harry says, “in front of my picnic basket painting.”

Louis bites his lip to hold back his smile. “Truly a work of art.” He tries to make his voice sound professional and probably fails.

“And this,” Harry continues, face impassive. He moves the front board to the back, revealing the next one, a scribbled drawing of exactly nine dicks, each with a different mustache-ridden face. _Ridden._ Louis giggles. “In front of one of my sunrise paintings.”

Louis nods, and Harry keeps going, flipping through the poster boards one by one—all portraying various dick-related sharpie drawings—and declaring which painting of his Louis had covered with each of them. By the time he finishes, Louis is practically heaving, his eyes watery with tears. When Harry had been out yesterday, Louis had gone to the shops and purchased the boards, then drawn all over them and placed them neatly in front of Harry’s paintings which littered the corners of the kitchen and living room. It’s a shame they hadn’t had any visitors yesterday. Ah well. Louis can only ask for so much.

“You,” Harry says, “are a menace.” But he’s placing the poster boards back onto the table and returning to his mixing, and Louis doesn’t miss the bridled smile that tugs on the corner of his mouth.

Bare feet cool against the wooden planks of the floor, Louis wanders the rest of the way into the kitchen, coming up beside Harry at the counter and trying to figure out what he’s making. Their shoulders bump, and Louis grins to himself—thoroughly satisfied—when Harry does his little blush-and-head-duck move Louis has come to recognize as him not being able to control his fondness.

It’s nice. It’s really nice. Because Harry out of control is beautiful. Carefully buttoned-up Harry out of control is the best thing Louis has ever seen. He wants to see it more, to see it properly.

Scooting closer with a yawn, he weasels his arm around Harry’s elbow and links it with his own. Harry smells a bit like vanilla this morning, but Louis is fairly certain it’s from the baking and not from the usual reason he often smells like vanilla in the mornings. He turns his face and presses his nose into Harry’s shoulder to warm it up, because he’s barefoot and half-naked and Harry always seems to be the warmest thing around for miles. Louis likes this a lot. Although he generally hates waking up any earlier than is absolutely necessary, he likes feeling like he and Harry are the only people awake on the planet, like the world around them is a swimming pool, grey and dark and murky, and the only pinprick of life is their flickering warmth in this tiny kitchen.

The room is quiet. There isn’t music, or white noise, or birds chirping. There’s only them, two tiny spikes on an otherwise flat heartrate monitor.

Louis bites at Harry’s shoulder through his shirt.

“Eggs?” he asks, just to be annoying, He knows it isn’t eggs. Obviously. It’s probably muffins or something.

Harry wriggles away from Louis’ teeth and then shakes his head, like he knows exactly what Louis is doing, and continues mixing.

“It’s not cereal, is it?” Louis continues, and Harry looks at him flatly. Or, he tries to look at him flatly, but the dimples in his cheeks betray him.

“It’s pancakes, you twat,” Harry finally says, exhaling dramatically. He cracks an egg into the bowl, and Louis grins. He wants to make some cheeky comment about how it actually _is_ eggs, sort of, but Harry speaks first.

“I can’t believe you went out and bought all those poster boards,” he laughs. “You’re ridiculous.”

Louis faux-gasps. “Excuse me. Those poster boards are now timeless works of art. Soon to be hung on the walls of the Louvre, I might add, so I would just shut up about them if I were you.” He picks up a spoon from the counter and licks the pancake batter from it. “Or are you just jealous I’m set to replace you as the champion of London’s posh university student art underworld?”

“M’not the champion,” Harry murmurs, but he’s blushing with laughter, and yeah, Louis loves mornings with Harry. It doesn’t matter how early they are.

He detangles himself from Harry, dropping the spoon and heading around the counter, because Harry’s kitchen island stools are about one-hundred times more comfortable than Louis’ are. They have cushions on them, for crying out loud. Louis wants to throw his own away.

A hand catches his arm however, and Louis turns around.

“You look good, Lou.” Harry’s quiet, sleep-rumbly voice spills over him like warm water. He looks serious now, less like a soccer mom who wakes up early to pack his kids’ lunch—not that soccer moms _can’t_ be serious and vaguely intimidating, _but_. He looks like the young man that he is, tall and dark-haired and bold like the finest stroke of calligraphy. Louis places his hands gently on Harry’s chest, to either side of the little row of buttons. His fingers itch from wanting to undo them. From wanting to undo _Harry._

From wanting _Harry_ to undo _him_.

To keep himself from growing flustered, Louis scoffs, rolling his eyes theatrically. “I’m in my pants, dear.” _Underwear._ _Boxers._ Not pants, Christ, he is from _America,_ for goodness’ sake. He’s a terrible citizen.

Harry only shrugs, leaning in to plant a kiss on Louis’ lips. It’s brief and chaste, and leaves Louis with a warm tingling sensation all throughout his body. He feels like static on a television set. He feels like the summer air.

“I like you in my clothes,” Harry says, hands sliding under the hem of Louis’—well, _Harry’s_ —jumper to smooth over the soft skin of his hips. All he can hear is the rain and Harry’s voice, melding together like they were made from the same stuff.

 _I like you in my_ life, Louis thinks, but he doesn’t say it, because here’s the thing:

Louis is going nowhere. Louis works at a bookstore. Louis gets scared when the bells above the door chime and a customer wants to speak with him. Louis probably won’t be able to pay for his flat next year. When Louis isn’t at Harry’s, sometimes Louis wakes up three hours before work just to shower until the water runs cold and he convinces himself that he can, in fact, handle spending time with other human beings for a few hours. Louis hasn’t spoken to his own family in months. Louis is going nowhere, and Louis is doing nothing with his life.

_I’d go nowhere with you and make it somewhere._

That night returns to Louis in flashbacks all the damn time, because yes, they had been drunk, but Louis had told Harry up front that he had nothing to give and Harry had shrugged it off like he didn’t mind it—no, not like he didn’t mind it. Like he didn’t _believe it._ Like he honestly thought that Louis had just as much to give as he did. He wonders if Harry still thinks that now, now that he knows Louis a little better.

“You have flour on your hands,” Louis mutters, as Harry’s hands slide around under the jumper to Louis’ back, pulling him close. Harry’s palms are wide, fingers splayed out across the dip at the bottom of Louis’ spine. His thumbs rub slow circles into Louis’ skin, pausing every once in a while to press down and to urge Louis closer. Harry’s lips are wet against his neck, and the sun still isn’t out but everything is warm. In the silence of the house, Louis swears he _hears_ himself shudder.

“Stop complaining,” Harry mumbles, distant, voice a shiver at Louis’ neck, and it takes Louis a good thirty seconds to figure out what Harry is referring to. “You’re always complaining.”

The words are sloshed, dipped underwater.

Louis huffs, squirming in an attempt to inconspicuously get closer to Harry’s body warmth. His hands are still pressed against Harry’s chest between them. “You like it.” Louis knows Harry does.

The boy only hums, but it sounds fairly committal and his lips are still on Louis’ neck, and so Louis decides to allow it. He holds perfectly still as Harry mouths lazily along the column of his neck, and it’s just. Fuck. Louis could do this every morning for the rest of his lie—he _could._ He absolutely could. If he could only convince Harry to get a job as a baker or a wedding caterer or something equally innocuous that meant he could spend every night and every morning with Louis. Yeah. That would be nice. That would be fucking ace.

He can’t help the small whine that leave his lips as Harry bites down lightly, and _Jesus Christ_ , Louis has been trying his best not to be a tease or provoke Harry into anything Harry has already made clear he doesn’t want to do, but honestly? What the fuck? Harry is absolutely, definitely being a tease right now and that is _so_ not okay. It’s a stupid game they play, where Harry riles him up just enough that Louis has to flee the room before he does anything that Harry doesn’t want, and it’s really a bit rude, isn’t it? But there it is. It’s a careful balance between both of them tasting everything and yet knowing they aren’t going to get it, and sometimes Louis forgets that Harry doesn’t actually want sex from him, which is. Annoying, partly. Sexually frustrating, mostly. But he gets it, he understands, he does.

Sort of.

Harry just likes to tease, is the thing. He likes to tease _a lot,_ and Louis likes to let him, because he knows it’s the best he’s going to get. _For now._ He has to keep telling himself _‘for now’_ or else he’s going to internally combust, has to keep pretending it’s all some sort of grandiose exercise in foreplay in order to maintain his sanity. He has to pretend there’s an end game or else he is going to actually _die._ And, at the same time, he has to not push Harry’s limits.

That’s, like, really hard to do though, especially when Harry is sucking a bruise into his skin and mumbling stupid endearments between breaths.

"Haz, Haz, baby, wait," he says, words stumbling into each other, at the same time as he feels himself pull Harry closer by the soft cotton of his shirt, fists bunched around the fabric. 

Louis has always found himself surrounded by paradoxes. They shadow him the way sunflowers—half dying, half so, _so_ alive—turn toward the sun, like he cannot exist without them, like he draws complex things into his orbit without intention, without really meaning to. And perhaps comparing himself to the sun is a bit arrogant, but he knows what he's like when he's himself, knows how people are drawn to him, to his charisma, to his wit and gregariousness. He remembers the way he used to be, the way he'd find himself with an audience in any social setting, much the way Harry had been surrounded by listeners that first night at the party.

Only the people Louis finds himself entangled with are always different. They’re always colorful and eccentric and complicated enough that Louis can't figure them out right away. He’s drawn to them the same way they’re drawn to him, is endlessly determined to solve them like puzzles, to write about them until he convinces himself he's figured them out only to be proved wrong again and again. He's always loved complicated things, always been attracted to them, always found them beautiful and strange and delicate. However, he’s also always had a penchant for tweaking people in his mind as though they were characters in his own personal story, as though, if he wanted, he could add a quirk here or detract a particular mannerism there. It’s the writer in him, the idealist and the hopeless romantic, looking at people as templates to create the perfect characters out of rather than as complete beings.

Louis falls in love with the idea of a person so easily, with the brief impression they leave with him. A boy in his music class, quick-witted and even quicker on the strings of his guitar. Another at the coffee shop, stupid and shy as he mulls over the names of various beverages. Louis is pretty sure he’s fallen in love with someone on a five-minute Tube ride—from Piccadilly Circus to King’s Cross—someone with freckles and a book in their hands that Louis has read.

Impressions are different than reality though, because reality moves. In reality, the boy with the guitar leaves class to cheat on his girlfriend behind the science building. In reality, the kid at the coffee shop unfreezes from the continuous loop of giggly beverage indecision Louis keeps him on in his mind—he orders a drink and when it spills, he curses the baristas and slams the door on his way out. In reality, the lad on the Tube is only reading the book for a school paper, and hates every word of it.

 _Maybe that’s why Harry likes Impressionism,_ Louis thinks. _Maybe, in that, we’re more similar than we think._

Louis doesn’t know.

He doesn’t know if wanting more from people makes him an idealist, if wanting people to be bigger and brighter and stranger than they seem to be means that his standards are too high, but he can’t help himself. And so instead of truly getting to know people, Louis steals their impressions and makes up the rest of their stories for himself. It’s probably sad, that he has to change people in order to fall in love with them. Although he is a writer; it is kind of his job to do just that. To find people who inspire him and then change them until he likes them—not until they’re perfect and flawless, but until he can love their characters—like a sculptor working a block of clay. It’s what he does.

But Harry. Fuck, _Harry._

Louis can’t think of a single thing about Harry that he would change.

Harry is an enigma, a pastel-blushed boy who fucks for a living. He's unabashed and carefully-guarded at the same time. The most honest person Louis has ever known, and the one who crafts multiple personas for the love of his art. He's shy and utterly shameless; broken, and terribly, terribly whole.

Harry isn't a character Louis has woven out of a select few of reality's threads—he's real, and he's in Louis arms. His heart is _beating_ beneath Louis’ _palms_.

He isn't a puzzle to be solved, or a riddle to be guessed. He isn't a caricature for Louis to write about. All of his pieces aren't _meant_ to be reconciled, because he isn't a contradiction to make sense of. 

He's a contradiction to _love_. 

And Fuck. 

Louis loves him.

Louis _knows_ him and Louis _loves_ him, and Louis wouldn’t change a single _thing_ about him.

"Hazza," he whines, unable to stop himself, the vowel-sounds long and drawn out and dripping with want. 

Louis wants him. 

Louis _loves_ him. 

"Hazza, please."

Harry guides him back easily to the edge of the table, hands solid at his waist and mouth never once leaving the soft skin of his neck. Louis can feel the bruises forming, see them behind his eyelids, the way they bloom like flowers beneath a dark light, like underwater petals unfolding, drawn out of sleep by soft caresses.

He lets his head fall back, the wooden edge of the table digging into the backs of his thighs. Harry moves forward, and Louis clings to his shirt so as not to fall. He wants to fall though. He wants to sit down on the surface of the table and wrap his legs around Harry's waist. Wants to be pulled closer. 

_Louis loves him._

Harry bites down especially hard at the junction of his neck and shoulder, and Louis' eyes fly open, purple and blue bursting into orange, into the muted glow from the light bulbs hanging in their mason jars. Louis imagines he can hear the jars clinking softly like wind chimes above their heads, imagines what it would feel like to have right there in front of him the proper words to describe what Harry's hands feel like against his skin, beneath his jumper. What it would be like to be _in possession of_ the words that make up Harry. But there aren't any, Louis knows. They don't exist. 

He wants them anyway. 

"You're perfect in the mornings," Harry says, breathless, drowning in the attention he's giving Louis, and Louis chokes out a whine that he's pretty sure carries throughout the whole of Harry's house. "I wish," Harry starts. He drags his mouth, wet and warm, from Louis shoulder to his neck, to the soft space behind his ear. "I wish I could keep you like this."

 _Fuck,_ Louis thinks.

"Fuck," he says aloud, and then, because he has a reputation to uphold as the master of sass, "Are you trying to say you don't find me perfect the rest of the time?"

Harry grunts and lifts him onto the table with an ease that sends Louis' pulse spiraling into the morning shadows. He feels his legs wrapping around the taller boy's waist and before he has a chance to stop himself, Harry is sliding a hand to one of his thighs to keep it there. "No, I do" he says quickly, shaking his head against Louis' neck. "You're just . . ." He presses a sloppy kiss beneath Louis' jaw, and Louis almost cries. "You're so soft and beautiful and _fuck,_ Louis, you're wearing my _clothes._ "

Fuck is right, Louis thinks. 

Mother-fucking fuck. 

"I could wear them all day, if you wanted," he offers, fixing Harry with a coy smile when the boy pulls back, pupils widened, to stare at him. Harry thumbs slowly over the skin of Louis’ inner thigh, just below the hem of his boxers, and wow, okay, Louis is having a really difficult time retaining his dignity here. "You could come visit me at work, and I'd be wearing them," he goes on. He leans forward a bit, one of his hands moving to Harry's shoulder for balance because he feels like full-on shuddering now, beneath Harry’s touch, and whispers in Harry's ear. "Everyone who saw me would _know_." He curls his lip in a sly smile, watching as Harry's mouth drops open, as his eyelids flutter—

And then he's _there,_ lips pressed hard over Louis', tongue pushing into his mouth, body nearly folding over Louis' on the table. Harry's shirt crinkles between Louis' fingers as he grasps at it; Louis can taste the pancake batter in Harry's mouth. And fuck, but Louis needs to stop the quixotism in him before it gets out of hand, because the way Harry touches him feels like forever. Louis’ eyes are closed, and he can see backyard barbecues and late night television, swimming pools and new furniture and arguing over weekly schedules. Teaching Harry how to play the piano, Harry showing him how to make a decent soufflé. 

Fuck fuck _fuck,_ Louis needs to _stop._

"Harry, Harry, what—" he tries, but Harry's mouth has dropped to his chest now, teeth scratching over his collarbones. Louis' glad he wore this one of Harry's jumpers. He'd like to see Harry in it, maybe. He'd like to see Harry's collarbones. 

Consequentially, his hands find their way to the neck of Harry's shirt, deft fingers scrabbling at the top buttons. He wants to see Harry's skin. He wants to see his tattoos, the dark birds inked into his skin that Louis has only ever caught glimpses of before. He wants to—

He's just undone the third button when Harry's entire body stiffens, hands freezing where they'd been smoothing across Louis' body only moments ago.

"What—" Louis begins, and Harry steps back, eyes wide, hands flying to the neck of his shirt to hold it closed. "Haz, I'm sorry, I didn't mean . . ." Louis trails off, not knowing what to say. What to _do._

 _"Louis,"_ is all Harry says, and it's quiet and choked in the silence of the kitchen. His eyes are wider than they've been all morning, and he looks to Louis reminiscent of a deer caught in a car's headlights, hair disheveled and face gone pale. It's worrying, to say the least. 

Louis slips off the table, feet landing gently on the wooden floor. He wills his hard-on away, because he's a fucking saint like that, and reaches for Harry's arm. 

Harry jerks slightly, but lets Louis touch him. 

"Please, Haz," Louis tries again. "Please talk to me." He waits a moment, and then, while moving a half step closer, adds one more "please" for good measure.

Because Louis loves Harry and he needs Harry to trust him.

Harry shakes his head, large eyes blinking at Louis, and Louis sighs.

"We don't have to do anything, Haz, you know that. I just . . . tell me about the clothes thing, yeah? You can talk to me, remember? Right, baby?"

He’s forcing himself to stay calm, but internally, he feels as though he’s just been lit on fire. Because he knows that Harry doesn’t want to sleep with him, right, but he’s also aware of something else about Harry that they haven’t spoken of yet—about Harry’s insistence on wearing so much clothing, about his shirts he keeps buttoned all the way to his throat and how he’ll never change in front of Louis. And it isn’t that Louis considers himself an expert at reading people, but he is fairly perceptive, and he can tell when something is wrong, especially when it comes to Harry. He can tell there’s something there that Harry hasn’t spoken of yet. He just doesn’t know what it is.

When Harry doesn't move, Louis closes the rest of the distance between them, drawing Harry into a tight hug. He lets his head drop down onto Harry's shoulder, and exhales quietly. 

"My first year of uni," Louis says, swallows, decides to try something new, "I had so many panic attacks I almost failed every single one of my classes. And you know what?" He laughs, the taste bitter on his tongue. "I don't even know why. Nothing traumatic happened to me. I just couldn't handle it. The pressure, the stress, the expectations. From my family and teachers, but honestly, most of it was from myself." He presses his nose into Harry's neck and takes a deep breath before continuing. "To this day, I'm still . . . I'm still . . . ." He doesn't know how to finish. The words are heavy on his tongue, but his chest feels lighter, having said them, and he supposes that isn't a bad thing. It's a refreshing sense of vulnerability, something he never expected would come from giving away a piece of himself, but there it is. 

And he wants Harry to know he can trust him. Because he can. 

"Fuck, _Louis,_ " Harry says, and his hands are on Louis' face, sliding down his neck, one of his thumbs pressing lightly on the column of his throat. When Louis swallows, he feels Harry's finger over his Adam's apple. 

Louis reaches out, tentatively, and smooths the lapels of Harry's shirt apart, baring his skin to him. 

Harry jolts, and Louis feels Harry's fingers digging into his shoulders, but the boy doesn't pull away. 

"Fuck," Harry says, eyes closing tightly until there's crinkles fanning out from their edges. "Fuck."

Louis unbuttons the fourth button, and Harry catches his wrist in one of his large hands. "That's enough, Lou," he says, and fuck if that doesn't turn Louis on. 

This is serious though. Louis needs to be serious. 

"Tell me," he whispers, brushing his thumb over Harry's collarbone. He can see the ink from his tattoos peeking out from beneath the parted fabric of his shirt. It shouldn't make him so frustratingly emotional, but it does. 

"It's my job," Harry says, his voice so low Louis would have missed it if he wasn't straining to hear, if he wasn't so carefully attuned to Harry's molasses-like drawl. "It's my job," he repeats. 

Louis thinks he might understand, but he needs to be sure. 

"Okay," he says, and then, "Tell me more?"

A long mewling sound escapes from high in Harry's throat, and then he's crushing Louis to him. Louis can feel the breath of his words ruffle his hair when he speaks. 

"It's my job, Lou, to take my clothes off. To let other people. I can't . . ." Louis feels him inhale. "Please don't make me talk about it."

Louis nods, willing away the tears that are threatening to spill. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

And that’s what it is, isn’t it? It’s okay. They’re okay.

They’ve got this.

They’re going to be okay.

Louis loves Harry so fucking much and they’re going to be okay.

God, but it fucks him up thinking that Harry can’t even take his clothes off without feeling like he’s working. It breaks his heart. And he knows Harry isn’t something to fix, knows that even if he was it wouldn’t be his responsibility, but people help their friends, don’t they? People help the people that they—

The people that they love.

Louis loves him.

It’s as easy as poetry.

It doesn’t slip through his fingers. He catches it, gentle as flower petals in the palm of his hand.

He puts his small palm to Harry’s cheek, feels it heat up beneath his touch. The sun is just beginning to rise, and Harry’s pale face is awash with orange and pink light. There’s peach fuzz, soft to the touch, on Harry’s jaw when Louis dances his fingers over it.

He kisses his cheek. “Pancakes,” Louis says finally. “Where are my pancakes, Hazza? I’m famished _,_ Jesus, it’s like you’re trying to _starve_ me or something.”

Harry’s laugh is bells. It’s mason jars clinking above their heads. Louis doesn’t feel nervous at all.

“Alright,” Harry agrees. He shakes his head in his own special, timid way, and turns back to the kitchen counter.

When his fingers move to the buttons of his shirt, no doubt to do them up again, Louis stops him with a gentle touch.

“You can do it, babe,” he whispers, squeezing Harry’s fingers lightly.

And Harry nods, jaw tight. One of Louis’ hands comes to rest over Harry’s heart, fingers curling into the skin beneath his shirt.

“Here,” he says. “Remember?” _Whatever’s in here, is real._

And Harry kisses him, soft and slow, before he picks up the whisk again, his shirt half open and his eyes falling occasionally on Louis where he sits at one of the kitchen stools.

Louis scribbles in his journal while Harry cooks, knuckles bent around a tiny, broken-in-half pencil.

 _He thinks I’m perfect in the morning_ , he writes.

 _I’m in love with him,_ he thinks. He doesn’t write it down yet, because it scares him, but he thinks it, and he thinks it again.

_I’m in love with him._

* * *

 

The first time they fight, it’s a whirlwind thing. Louis is wearing his batman shirt again and Harry isn’t home. They’ve been doing whatever it is they’ve been doing for a little over a week now, trading kisses and stories and Louis’ been gradually getting better at sleeping in the same bed as Harry without taking it any further than that. Louis spends most of his time away from work at Harry’s house, his own little flat abandoned in the rain somewhere in West London, and Harry makes sure to leave a note every time he’s gone in the morning. He still wears his shirts buttoned all the way up, but sometimes, late at night or early in the morning, Louis can convince him to undo two or three of the buttons. And sometimes, if Louis’ very, very lucky, Harry will let him kiss him there, drag his tongue over his collarbones and the space on his chest between the swallows.

God, sometimes Louis loves him _so much._

It’s becoming less scary, the fact that he _does_ love him. It’s starting to settle.

Not that it drives him any less crazy, but, all in all, it really isn’t too bad.

It isn’t too bad, and so when Louis wakes up one morning to no Harry _and_ no note, he doesn’t know why his whole body goes into panic mode. They’ve had their sticky-note arrangement going on for a while now, and it’s not like it’s an absolute thing—it’s not like they’ve talked about it and set it in stone, because that would be ridiculously clingy and even though Louis pretty much knows he’s in love at this point, they haven’t actually had that particular conversation yet—but it’s sort of become a routine thing for them, and so Harry not leaving a note is freaking Louis the fuck out.

He’s pacing. Like, he’s actually pacing on the wooden floor in front of the door, trying to decide if he should go to work or if he should just cancel everything and have a dramatic, self-indulgent day in. Eventually, he chooses the latter, dialing Mrs. Singer and pretending to have the flu. He makes sure to cough a good four or five times during the phone call to ensure his point is made.

She doesn’t believe him for a second, but she lets him have the day off. Which is nice of her. Louis only feels mildly sorry.

He would probably feel more sorry if he wasn’t so busy feeling sick to his stomach.

Why hadn’t Harry left a note? Was he tired of the routine? Was he tired of _Louis_? Had he gone somewhere he hadn’t wanted to tell Louis about and expected to be back before he woke up? Did he not care anymore? Maybe he had simply run out of sticky notes. But no. The stack is still there, on the countertop next to the fridge where Louis had been sitting when he’d first seen Harry, and even if Harry had run out of sticky notes, Louis is fairly certain that there are other papers in the house Harry could have used to write a note on.

His hands are shaking.

He fumbles with his phone, hands gone cold—it takes him three tries to slide his finger and unlock it—and opens his contacts.

“’lo?”

“Niall? Niall, are you asleep?”

He hears Niall’s laugh through the receiver, and it brings a slight semblance of calm to his nerves.

“The fuck, mate, it’s like six am?”

“And?” Louis asks. He really does not need Niall to be a prick right now. “Some people have work to go to, you know.” Not that Louis is going to work today. But, like, he could have been, and that’s really the point.

Niall grumbles something about classes that Louis doesn’t catch, but then his voice is back, brogue heavier in the morning. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Haven’t heard from you in ages anyway, mate. Rubbish, innit?”

“Shut up, _Neil_ ,” Louis groans. His heart is still beating in his fingertips, but he feels more grounded with Niall on the other end of the phone, less like he’s about to float away into oblivion. “Harry forgot to leave a note.” He can’t help it when the words spill out of his mouth. It’s like, he doesn’t mean to be that person who only calls his friends once in a blue moon to complain about something, but he’s actually close to full-blown panicking right now and he can’t think of much else to do.

There’s a long silence, and then, “Whattayamean?”

Louis tugs at the hair at the back of his neck, still pacing in the hallway. “I _mean_ ,” he says, “Harry usually leaves a note—Harry _always_ leaves a note—when he’s going to be gone in the morning, and he didn’t, and I don’t know what to do. Like what if he doesn’t want this anymore, Ni? What if he got tired of me because I’m not interesting or eclectic like all those weird, artsy friends of his that follow him around at parties and worship the fucking ground he walks on?” Fuck, Harry totally could have gotten tired of him. Louis isn’t an artist. He doesn’t exist in the same circles Harry does. He barely knows what the primary colors are _,_ for Christ’s sake. “What if, like, he thinks I’m not helping his art or something? Ugh, I don’t know. I just—I asked him to not ignore me at parties a while back and shit, and like, we haven’t really been to any together since but what if it’s that? What it—“

“Louis.”

“Niall.”

“Louis, you need to—“

“I’m freaking out here, man. I—“

“I know, Lou,” Niall says, and his voice is slow like he’s trying to communicate with a child. “Will you stop talking for like two-point-five seconds?”

Louis inhales deeply and stops his pacing, sitting down on the arm of one of Harry’s sofas. His thumbnail is bitten down and he hadn’t even realized he’d been chewing on it. He’s wearing Harry’s clothes again—it’s become something of a habit because of the response it elicits from Harry every single fucking time—and somehow that calms him. Pulling the sleeves of Harry’s jumper over his fingers, he presses his iPhone closer to his ear.

“Look,” Niall says. “I don’t know Harry very well, but I know you. And I know you tend to, like, freak out a bit over things that aren’t as bad as you think they are.” Louis wants to protest, but his hands _are_ still shaking so Niall may have a point. “And from what I _do_ know of Harry, it seems like the kid is really hooked on ya. Maybe just text him, yeah? See if he’s alright?”

And oh. Louis hadn’t even thought to text Harry? Why hadn’t Louis thought of that?

“Fuck, okay, thanks, Ni,” he says, pulling in a shaky breath. “Thank you. Just, yeah, thanks.”

“’Sorry for waking you up at the arsecrack of dawn, Niall.’” The Irish lad’s voice is high-pitched and squeaky, and Louis knows he’s trying to imitate him. “’You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Niall. My life savings belong to you, Niall.’”

Louis definitely does not laugh. “I have absolutely no idea why you’re talking like that,” he says, and hangs up the phone.

Bless Niall. He’s a bit of a shit, but Louis loves him.

He’s got to text Harry now. Right. He draws in a shaky breath and pushes his finger on the text app.

The door swings open.

“Fuck Jesus holy shit fuck god fuck.” Louis jumps, his entire body startling enough that he nearly falls backward onto the couch. Vaguely he’s aware of his heartrate skyrocketing, of his pulse throbbing in his fingers and behind his ears, but his main focus is on Harry, standing in the doorframe with his house keys in his hand, eyebrows furrowed as he stares at Louis.

“Louis,” Harry says, voice slow, like he’s trying to figure out what it was he’d just walked in on. “Are you . . . are you quite alright?”

Louis wants to cry.

He hates—he absolutely hates—appearing weak in front of people, and even though he’ll preach to death the necessity of vulnerability in a relationship, he really, _really_ doesn’t want to cry in front of Harry right now. Call him a hypocrite, whatever. Harry is looking at him with giant, worried eyes, and Louis is just—

Louis’ angry, is what he is. He’s angry that Harry didn’t leave a note, that he didn’t even text him, that he didn’t do anything at all to let Louis know he was going to be gone in the morning. And now he’s here again, striding back through his godforsaken door like he didn’t just _abandon_ Louis and leave him to _die_ in this massive fucking house. His hands grip the arm of the sofa that he’s sitting on, knuckles gone white, and all Harry is doing is looking at him with his giant green eyes so full of concern it makes Louis’ insides twist. There’s a part of his mind that’s warning him to calm down, to just let Harry hold him and listen to his explanation, but there’s another part of him that tells him to lash out, to make a scene and throw a tantrum, and honestly he’s so at the end of his rope at this point, what with Harry leaving as often as he does, and he could really use a good cry. So he just.

He chooses to lash out. Naturally.

“Fuck. Fucking hell, Haz, you’re here.”

Harry blinks at him slowly. The jeans he’s wearing are ripped at the knees, but there’s a light grey fabric underneath so that his skin still isn’t showing, and the button-down he chose to wear today is black, making his eyes seem brighter and the pink of his cheeks appear more pronounced. Louis thinks he might even be wearing eyeliner, because it looks smudged around his right eye. He looks practically edible, and it makes Louis angrier because Harry wasn’t dressing for him. He was dressing for whatever client he had visited last night—visited without bothering to leave a note to let Louis know.

“Um,” Harry says, slowly. Everything he does is so fucking slow. “Yeah, I am. S’that okay?”

Louis finds himself chewing on his thumbnail again, and scrubs a finger over his eyebrow before bringing his hand down to his lap. He’s still perched on the arm of the couch, but his knee is jittery and he’s already almost fallen off twice. “Why didn’t you leave a note?” There’s a cold ring to his voice that echoes over the wooden floors, and he winces when it makes its way back to him. Harry seems puzzled, lips pursed and eyes darting around the kitchen before landing back on Louis. After a moment of silence, he closes the door behind him and hangs the keys on one of the hooks on the wall.

“Louis—“

“No, seriously. Why didn’t you do it?” And fuck, his voice sounds panicky. He didn’t want it sound panicky. “You were supposed to fucking leave a note. I came downstairs, Haz, I came downstairs and I didn’t know if you had a client or if you had just left and were coming back, like maybe you went to the shops or something, in which case I would have asked you to pick up more tea because we’re almost out, or if I should go to work, but I didn’t, I didn’t know and—“ He gasps in a breath when he realizes he hasn’t the entire time he’s been talking, and then dissolves into a series of coughs, hand pressed to his chest. He nearly keels over, but Harry is at his side just then, a hand placed tentatively on his shoulder and the other on the small of his back to keep him steady. It feels nice. Louis wants to punch him because he doesn’t want it to feel nice; he wants to be mad. Why is it so bloody difficult to stay mad at Harry?

 “Louis,” Harry repeats, but he’s closer now and it makes Louis dizzy, his eyes swimming with tears as Harry’s palm rubs circles high on his back.

“Harry, I don’t—“ he tries, but he’s still choking on air and his own saliva, and the words are small in the air.

He feels Harry’s lips on the top of his head, and he wants to be angry but it’s hard when he can’t actually breathe. “Hey, shh, baby,” Harry murmurs, and suddenly the deliberateness of his voice is soothing, a warm wash of words over Louis’ skittering nerves. He’s almost willing to forgive him simply for that. Almost. “Lemme check under the fridge for a sec’, yeah?”

And what?

For a moment, Harry is gone, and Louis is left clinging to the patterned sea-green fabric of the sofa. He uses the time to steady his breathing, allowing his eyes to fall closed in the early morning light, the sun dipping through the open windows and warming his cheeks and right shoulder where the collar of Harry’s shirt has slipped down. Louis did leave it half unbuttoned for a reason.

Something shadows his vision, and his eyelids flutter open just in time for him to see Harry, appearing in front of him with a sticky note held in both his hands. It’s pastel-pink, and when Louis swallows and reaches gingerly for it, Harry lets it go.

It reads:

_morningggggg lou-bear! if you wake up before I get back, there are boiled eggs in the fridge and I bought more tea. have a quick appointment with my agency. see you. .x_

Louis pales. “What the fuck?” he stammers. “Where—”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Harry interrupts. One of his hands smooths up and down Louis’ arm, squeezes lightly at his bicep. “I ran out of tape this morning, but I mean, it is a _sticky_ note so I thought it’d stay put.” He chuckles lightly. “Appearently not. I’ll get some more next time I’m out.” He kisses Louis’ forehead, leaving his lips there afterward. “M’sorry, baby. I didn’t know it would upset you.”

Louis feels the shakiness subside, the way it does often when Harry is close to him, but he feels two separate feelings take its place—a horrible guilt, swirling and aching, and a full-body tiredness that seems to overwhelm and intensify everything else.

“Shit, Haz,” he breathes, feeling himself deflate. “I was so worried.”

Harry’s eyes narrow at that, his hand dropping away from Louis’ arm. “Why? What would you have to be worried about?”

“I don’t know,” Louis shrugs. “You, just, doing what you do. Just . . . working, I guess.”

Harry rolls his eyes, an exasperated noise sounding in his throat, and runs a hand through his hair, stepping away from Louis. “Louis, I’ve been doing this for years.” He crosses his arms. “I know what I’m doing. I don’t need you to parent me.”

And woah, okay. Louis does not want to think about how long Harry has been doing this for. God, that’s. Wow. He can feel his anger returning, even if it is in a more subdued form, and he stands up from the sofa arm in order to level Harry with his best glare. He’s probably not incredibly intimidating, especially not to Harry, who’s a good few inches taller than him, but Louis has been told he has a way of making himself bigger when he gets into arguments, and he’s damn well trying to do that now.

“Jesus, Harry.” He throws an arm out, and fuck, he’s trying to feel big here but he still feels small. “I’m so _sorry_ that I care about you. God, you make everything so fucking difficult, don’t you?”

“I don’t need to be taken care of,” Harry purports.

And Louis’ breath whooshes out of him; he sits back down on the arm of the sofa. He recognizes that voice, is the thing—it’s Harry’s stubborn voice, the voice he uses when he doesn’t actually mean what he says but he feels the need to say it anyway, when there’s something else hidden underneath the words. Sometimes Louis wonders if he uses that voice on purpose so that Louis knows, so that Louis can do his best to unveil whatever Harry is feeling.

“Hey, Haz,” Louis whispers. He reaches for Harry’s hand, an exhale leaving his body when Harry lets him take hold of it and draw him closer. “Remember what you said? About everyone needing a superhero?”

Harry rolls his eyes again, the movement slow, so desperately _Harry_. “Don’t—“

“No, I’m serious,” Louis continues, pushing onward. “I think you were right. I think everyone does, sort of, need a superhero. And I know you can handle things on your own and what not.” He rolls one of Harry’s fingers between his two hands. “I guess I just mean that . . . you don’t have to? Does that even make sense?”

Harry averts his eyes. “Kinda.”

“Okay,” Louis nods. “Well then just, let me worry about you, alright?”

Harry shakes his head. “I don’t want you to worry about me.” His voice is quiet now though, soft and fond and Louis knows he’s won whatever battle it was they had begun to fight.

He shrugs his shoulders, grinning. “Yeah, well, that’s just too bad, mate, isn’t it?”

Harry smiles, pushing Louis’ knees to the sides with his free hand and stepping between them. “Wait,” he says, and his smile falls. “What about you then? Like, are you alright. With the sticky note thing. I didn’t think—“

“Harry.”

Harry goes quiet, and Louis watches his Adam’s apple bob as he thinks of what to say next.

He doesn’t want to tell Harry that he’s terrified. He doesn’t want to tell Harry that the whole sticky-note ordeal isn’t really his fault at all, that it’s all just Louis—Louis being scared and Louis needing things he can’t have. He doesn’t want to tell Harry the truth because the truth seems so redundant. Harry knows—Harry already knows that Louis wants more from him, and they’re both well-aware that Louis had promised he wouldn’t ask for it.

It’s worth it, Louis knows. It’s so worth it.

It’s worth it to wake up in the morning and see one of Harry’s notes, to know that he’s away in bed with someone else, because he knows that, at the end of the day, Louis is the one that Harry will always, always come back to. It’s worth it to stay up late, cuddled alone under Harry’s blankets and knowing that he’s out working, because he knows there will be a night when Harry sleeps next to _him,_ when Harry holds _him_. And it’s worth it because, even though Louis really, really wants the sex, he understands the reason that Harry is holding back with him—because he wants it to be different, with them. He wants it to be more.

So it’s worth it, yes, but it’s also a proper fucking tragedy. Shakespeare would be so damn proud.

Louis slips his arms around Harry’s waist, cuddling his face into his chest. His feet don’t even reach the floor, which is, quite frankly, nothing less than sad, and so he rubs his bare feet against the backs of Harry’s ankles and thighs.

“I miss you quite a lot when you’re gone,” is what he chooses to say.

Harry’s heartbeat skips beneath his cheek.

One of Louis’ favorite things about Harry is how responsive he is to everything—to not only Louis, but to the world. While Louis lives seventy percent of the time in his head, Harry lives in the present. Harry has paint-stained fingertips and soft callouses from gripping his brushes. He has lips made for kissing and wide, green eyes made for taking in the world around him. He has scuffed boots and sun-kissed cheeks and limbs long enough to reach out and take hold of any one of the stars if his modesty allowed it. Harry, Louis thinks, was made to be a part of everything he touches, to absorb it all and be absorbed by it. He was made to _be_ the world, and Louis—

Louis was made to fall in love with it.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” he asks.

Harry nods his head, and Louis sighs when he feels his long fingers carding through his hair.

“That sounds nice,” Harry says. “I’d like that.”

Louis undoes the top three buttons of Harry’s shirt, sliding the lapels to the side and placing a kiss in the center of his chest before wrapping his arms back around his boy.

“I’d like that too,” he says, but neither of them move.

The first time they fight, it’s a whirlwind thing.

 

* * *

 

The second time they fight, it is the slow unsettling of dust. 

Harry is going to miss Christmas. He's going to miss Christmas, and he's going to miss Louis' birthday, and not only that, but he's going to miss them due to being in an entirely different country in the bed of some nameless man Louis has never met. 

The morning that Louis learns this, he kicks Harry out of his own house and proceeds to chain smoke an entire pack of cigarettes in the living room.

Louis had hardly even said anything, in truth. Harry had told him over breakfast, as they ate across from each other at the kitchen island, about how one of his regulars paid to take him to Paris every year over the holidays, and Louis had pushed his plate aside. 

"I don't want to see you," he remembers hearing himself say, steel-tongued and biting, and that was all. There had been no emotion in his words, nothing grated or angry, a mirror of how his insides had felt in that moment, of how quickly he had managed to dissociate himself from the brief flare of pain. 

And Harry had left. Without saying a word or finishing his meal, he had left, removing his coat from its hanger and ducking out into the rain as if it were an average Tuesday morning and he hadn't just boiled Louis' blood to the point that homicide was a viable outcome.

Paris can go fuck itself, as far as Louis is concerned. 

Only then he starts thinking about Paris, and fucking, and Harry fucking in Paris without Louis, and it makes him inhale too much smoke and choke until his eyes water.

Harry has an art show on New Year’s Eve. He’d told Louis about it during one of their movie nights and Louis had said he would be there. He’d been so excited, eyes wide and dimples appearing in full force, craters in his pink cheeks, lifting Louis off the floor and crushing him in a hug as he relayed the news, breathless with information. _My first art show, Lou!_ he had exclaimed. _I’ve never been invited to one before._ _You’ll be there, won’t you?_ Yes, Louis had said. Yes, of course he would.

Except now, now that all Louis can think about is Harry bundled in some other man’s coat, long, elegant fingers fumbling around champagne flutes in the Paris fog, he would honestly rather spend his New Year’s Eve getting pissed off his face with random strangers.

Fuck, he loves Harry Styles, he does, but he can’t do this.

When the boy you love sleeps with other people for money, it’s one thing. But when the boy you love goes with someone else to Paris on a week-long trip filled with holiday lights and soft sheets and lilting music in the goddamned city of _love_ , for fuck’s sake, it’s something else entirely—no matter how much money he’s being paid for it. Louis is coping with having to give up the sex part of his and Harry’s relationship, but the handholding and the butterfly-kisses and the playing with each other’s fingers while the telly makes muted sounds in the background—those are _his_ things. Those are his fucking things, and they’re the only things he has; he can’t handle having to give them up as well. He can’t even handle the thought of having to _share_ them.

 

* * *

 

Harry doesn’t leave a note before he goes away, and Louis makes sure he’s drunk the _entire_ time Harry is gone.

He calls Niall up, and Niall brings his mates Liam and Ed, and the four of them get sloshed three days in a row. On Louis’ birthday, they get extra sloshed and Louis cries into Niall’s shoulder for a good six or seven hours, reruns of Friends playing on the television until Louis’ certain the show will forever be associated in his mind with misery and too much Imperial from Tesco. The boys leave late that night, because it is Christmas after all, and they’ve all got families to get back to. He supposes he should be thankful that they stayed at all.

They leave him cards, and he doesn’t read them. His phone rings for hours before he finally answers it, drunk enough to not bother noticing the caller I.D.

“Louis!”

And oh. It’s his mom.

Okay.

“Mom,” he says. He sounds awful, he knows, and it’s nearly midnight. He wonders how long she’s been trying to get ahold of him. “Mom, hi. Merry Christmas.” And fuck, but he should not have answered his phone while this out of sorts. She’ll know, of course she will.

But then he hears her laugh, crinkly like Christmas paper through the phone, and she sounds so happy and it’s. It’s nice. She’s so nice. He misses her.

“Lou, I’ve been calling you for hours, love. Are you alright?”

She sounds so concerned, and Louis feels so guilty. He hasn’t spoken to her in ages, and hearing her voice again brings back memories like synesthesia, colors and feelings and an aching warmth he can’t handle being without right now. He wonders what Harry is doing, if he’s laid out on white sheets pretending to laugh at something his client is saying, if maybe his laugh is genuine. Louis wants to throw up, and he doesn’t think it has much to do with the impending hangover.

“I’m fine, yeah,” he croaks, then clears his throat, falling backwards onto the dingy sofa in his apartment. He tries not to think about how foreign it feels, about how he hasn’t properly lived here in ages. It’s only been a month, really. It feels like forever. “Had a few friends over earlier, but they’re gone.”

There’s a silence at the other end of the line, and then:

“Happy birthday, Lou.”

Louis finds himself crying. He scratches his nails over the roughness of the sofa covers and tries not to sniff audibly.

“Thanks, mom.” He’s been in London so long he wants to say ‘mum,’ but he doesn’t.

He also wants to say he’s sorry he doesn’t have the money to come home, but he doesn’t say that either.

“Say hi to the girls and Ernest for me, yeah?” he says instead. He hears a quiet sniffling coming from the other end of the line, and fuck, but this is too much.

“Are you okay, Lou?”

_No._

Louis doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything. He’s also pretty sure that if he opens his mouth the only sound that will come out is a sob.

“You know I love you right, boo-bear?” Her voice is so soft. He doesn’t remember it being so soft. “You know I’m so proud of you. And your dad,”—her voice is interrupted here by another sniffle—“he loves you too. He’ll come ‘round, I know he will.”

Louis squeezes the bridge of his nose. He rubs at his eye with a small fist.

“Say hi to the girls and Ernest, yeah?”

“Louis.”

“Love you, mom,” he says. “Happy Christmas.” And then he hangs up the phone.

 

* * *

 

On New Year’s Eve, Louis doesn’t drink. He stays in his apartment, curled up on the ratty sofa with a bowl of ramen noodles and a cup of Yorkshire Gold. Two packs of Marlboro’s lay on the table, one half-filled with cigarettes and the other crushed and empty. There’s nothing on the television, and everything is cold.

He’s wrapped himself up in a beige knitted throw blanket to try to fight the chill, but it stays, lingers like the white moonlight in the square of his window. He can’t help but wonder if Harry has called, or texted, but he’s too nervous and too upset to turn his phone back on after the night of his birthday. Besides, he’s angry with Harry, isn’t he? At least he might be. He might be angry with himself.

Harry was supposed to have returned from his trip last night, and as far as Louis knows, he has. He’s likely at home now in his bed, upstairs getting ready for—

No.

Harry wouldn’t be at home. Of course he wouldn’t be. He would be at the art show, his paintings on display and his long body folded neatly into a perfectly-tailored tux. He’s probably wearing a hat too, which means his curls will be all mussed up and pressed down on his head when he takes it off later. Louis imagines what he’s doing at the moment, charming the guests with his dimpled smile and his endearing mix of eagerness and complete ease. He imagines the way his face might light up when someone complements one of his works, the way he might start to explain—in his honey-laced voice—the inspiration or meaning behind one of them, the way he might tip his hat at someone as a courtesy, might tip his smile in their direction as they approach him.

He wonders which paintings Harry has chosen to display, wonders why he hadn’t asked him more about the show when he’d had the chance, wonders if Harry picked ones that Louis had said were his favorite.

He thinks he’s probably a fool for falling in love with Harry, but then he also thinks he could be the wisest, most fortunate person in the world. Cuddled up against the arm of his sofa, blanket pulled around his shoulders, he wonders if it might be both.

Discovering Harry was like the stoking of embers. Sometimes when he closes his eyes, he can see the smoke, curling and wild and free, leaping toward the sky like spiraled ribbons. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, if the fire will die or if it will continue to burn until it blazes, but it’s here now, and it’s warm, and it makes his heart stammer beautifully. He wants it more than anything.

Shit.

Louis scrambles from the couch, flinging his blanket from his shoulders and dashing toward his bedroom. He should be at that art show with Harry. He should _be_ there. He can talk to Harry later about Paris and about the way it made him feel, but right now he should be at the art show supporting the boy he loves.

His jeans are scratchy as he pulls them over his legs, compared to the sweats he’s been in all week, and the black scoop-neck tee he slips on is a bit too big over his shoulders. He’s gained some weight though, since meeting Harry, thanks to less smoking and more well-prepared meals, and he feels like he has more energy how than he’s had in years. He snatches a grey beanie from the top shelf in his closet, eyeing his folded keyboard wistfully, and then rushes back into the living room, fumbling through the trash on the low table until his fingers close around his wallet. From the wall by the door, he grabs his coat, and finally he slides his feet into a pair of maroon vans sitting on the floor.

He takes a deep breath.

He isn’t sure what he’s going to say to Harry when he sees him, because it’s been over a week since they last spoke, but he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

He feels like he’s been dormant for years and now—now he’s running.

The rain outside batters against the sliver of door, and Louis pulls his beanie down over his head like a helmet. He opens the door.

And Harry is standing there, bruises across his cheekbones melting under the rain.

Five of his buttons are undone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thx for reading, <3 <3 <3  
> feel free to talk to me about anything you like or don't like on my tumblr or here in the comments:)


	6. A Quiet Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis wants to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I'm so sorry this has taken me so long to get up. I've had quite a bit of stuff going on in my life, but I'm happy to finally finish this chapter, and if any of you are still around, thanks for keeping up with the story.
> 
> I apologize if it's absolutely terrible! Again, my life has been crazy lately, and so I'm sure this isn't my best work. But anyway! Thank you all for reading. I tried to make it a bit less heavy than usual, per some lovely person's suggestion, but any and all feedback is always welcome!
> 
> Also I have no beta and so all mistakes are fully and entirely my own. 
> 
> Love you all lots. Thanks for reading!
> 
> (oh and the end might be weird, so like, read the end notes maybe? idk :P)

Something changes in Louis the moment he sees Harry.

It's not an easy thing to understand, unless you've felt it before, but it goes like this:

He's back in his first year of uni, lying in his bed with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, fingers tapping nervously against his chest, and he has three classes today but he won't go to any of them. The room is murky with cigarette smoke, a dream state he can't bring himself to step out of. His phone rings, and he doesn't answer it. There's a siren blaring somewhere outside, and all he can think of is what dying might feel like. Not death itself, but the process of dying, the descent—or ascent—into nothingness. He wants to know if maybe, for a single sustained moment, he would feel more alive than he ever has in his entire life.

He wants to know if it would be _worth it._

Niall's visiting him and saying something about how he needs to get out, how he needs to open his blinds once in a while and stop moping about in the dark. But it's scary, and pointless, and he's tired. He sleeps all the time and he's still _tired._

And then the change. 

He's on his feet, breathless under an open sky. He can't sit still for a single moment. Everything is bright, and everything is in color, and being okay shouldn’t be a novelty but it is.

He remembers dancing with Harry on that first night, painting with Harry, Harry panting _him._

Nothing's ever made him want so badly to live. 

And now, seeing that same boy here, just a step away, like this—

Nothing's ever made him want so badly to _fight._

Because it's Harry—gentle, pastel-wearing, cinnamon-roll-baking Harry—standing white against the grey rain, bruises blooming on his skin like ink blots on a page, and every one—

_No._

The world isn't a story anymore. Louis can't narrate it in his head from the safety of third-person. He's got to live it. He's got to fight for it.

He's got to do _something._

Louis cries. 

He cries as he cradles Harry's body on the doorstep, cries as he kisses his mouth, cries as he stumbles with him through the flat and into the tiny bathroom, as he turns on the faucet, as the tub fills up with water. 

He cries when it takes him four tries to convince Harry to let himself be undressed by Louis' hands, and he doesn't know why he's crying because it should be Harry, it should all be Harry, everything, and maybe Harry is crying too. It's hard to tell, in the bathroom, with the steam and the water droplets on the glass doors. 

"Please, Harry," he begs, fingers on that formidable fifth button. Harry's so much taller than Louis, but right now he's small, tucked into Louis' shoulder with his eyes closed. 

"Can't, Lou. I—" And it's so hot in the room, so suffocating. The way they're dragging air into their lungs is nothing like breathing. It can't be. 

Louis tries again. 

"Harry."

"Lou, I'm dirty. You won't—" 

" _Baby_."

Harry crumbles at that, melting into Louis' arms with a small sob and a nod as Louis gingerly unbuttons the rest of the shirt. Louis' hands are trembling, but he's careful with them, careful not to touch too much of Harry's exposed skin, careful not to startle him, not to hurt him in any way. He rolls the sleeves down his arms in breathless slow motion, and then Harry is bare-chested in front of him for the first time, tall and lean and with curls of hair sweeping his shoulders. 

Louis can't help himself. He allows just the very tips of his fingers to glide over the smattering of tattoos across Harry's chest and shoulders. He's never seen them before, not any of them. There are two birds and a butterfly, fern leaves, a boat, a heart, a rose in the same place as his own dagger. He tries not to find any particular meaning in that, but he is a writer, after all. He can't help but assign stories to each one of Harry's tattoos, to guess the reasons behind them. He wants to memorize every single one. 

Something breaks open inside of him at that thought, and it spills across his cheeks in a fresh batch of tears. There's so much that he doesn't know about Harry still, so much that he's missing, so many tiny moments from Harry's past that Harry tiptoes around whenever he speaks to Louis. And it's like, Louis knows that Harry trusts him, only there are certain things that Harry seems to think he just doesn't need to talk about for one reason or another. Things that he thinks are okay left unsaid.

And maybe they are, for Harry. But Louis—Louis needs to know. He needs Harry to talk to him.

He wants to know the stories behind every tattoo Harry got done without him.

You can make up for lost time, can't you? You can fill back in the spaces? 

Without thinking, Louis leans forward and presses a kiss to the center of Harry's chest, his hands wrapping around Harry's biceps for balance, for something solid to hold onto.

At first, Harry's body jolts at the touch, and Louis almost pulls away, but then he feels Harry's fingers gripping tightly at his waist. He tilts his head slightly, resting his forehead against Harry's naked chest and breathing in deeply. Harry smells like sweat with only the slightest traces of vanilla, and Louis reaches up and rubs a fist beneath his own eye, smudging at the tears there.

"You're so beautiful," he says. He doesn't know what else to say. "I mean that so much, Haz. So much. You're so beautiful. You're gorgeous. I love . . ."

He presses his lips together, glad that the blush on his face is hidden beneath Harry's gaze. 

"Louis?"

"Fuck, Haz, you don't even—" He interrupts himself by pushing up on his toes and covering Harry's mouth with his own. It's warm and rushed, and Louis can feel Harry's long fingers growing tighter on his waist the longer it continues. He lets his hands wander from Harry's arms to his shoulders, before sweeping them down across the gentle planes of his chest. Everything about Harry is soft and strong at the same time, smooth skin over well-built muscles, a gentle heart among all of his frightened courage. Louis wants everything that Harry is to last forever. 

Wants this kiss to last forever. 

He almost told him he _loved_ him. He almost said the words _out loud._

He moans into Harry's mouth before he can stop himself, and then breaks away, feeling a deep blush suffuse his cheeks. The fingers of his right hand curl into the dip above Harry's collarbones, a protective gesture, as if he can somehow keep Harry tethered to him throughout the rest of their lives. 

He wants to tell him how he feels so badly it _aches._

"Bath," he mumbles instead, into the damp skin of Harry's shoulder. "We're gonna take a bath, okay baby?"

"Lou," Harry mumbles. His nose is pressed against the top of Louis' head, the breath of his words ruffling Louis' hair. 

Louis hugs him then, full-on hugs him, throwing his arms around Harry's waist and squeezing his eyes closed. "You're so lovely," he says. "You're so lovely and you make me so happy, you know that?" He gives Harry's torso a light squeeze, and then adds, softer, "Can we take a bath now, baby? Can we do that?"

Harry freezes in his arms, which Louis finds understandable, since the boy hasn't so much as rolled up his sleeves in front of Louis until now. Except that Louis wants Harry to trust him, wants him to feel safe with him, wants him to know that he can be vulnerable with him. 

Louis steps back, detaching himself from Harry. He meets Harry's eyes, and then, without looking away, tugs his own shirt over his head by the collar and tosses it onto the tiles. 

The room is warm and full of steam, and Louis feels the condensation of it on his chest and shoulders the moment he removes his shirt. The lights above them flicker with orange warmth, not quite reminiscent of candle-light, but close enough, he thinks. He can feel his hair standing up in disarray, and he reaches to smooth it out before choosing instead to leave it that way and drop his hand to his side. This is about vulnerability, after all. It's about being exactly the way they are, without pretenses. His hands are shaking as he reaches for the tie of his own sweatpants, pulling it undone and kicking them off one leg and then the other. 

When he looks up again, Harry is watching him with rosy cheeks under the dim golden light, green eyes glistening with tears. Louis tries not to focus too much on the bruising, scared that if he does he’ll be too angry to be what Harry needs right now—to be the kind of soft that Harry needs.

"It's just a bath, love," he says. He reaches for Harry's hand, and Harry lets him take it. 

For a long moment there is nothing but silence, the whirling white noise of all the little sounds Louis' apartment makes throughout the day, and then Harry's head inclines ever so slightly, before he steps out of his own jeans, tugging them off with an awkward sort of grace and refusing to meet Louis' eyes. Their boxers are next, Louis slipping out of his and Harry following suit, until they're both standing face to face in the small room, Louis doing his best to keep his eyes above Harry's waist. Because this isn't about that. This is about Harry being okay, right here, right now, and that's it. 

He reaches gingerly for Harry's hand, and Harry lets him take it. 

"C'mere," he mumbles, voice hushed, but the words still echo against the tiles on the bathroom floor, repeating themselves until they're nothing but indistinguishable noise. Ripples in a vast ocean. "I can just sit here on the ledge, if you like," he offers. 

Harry nods, and then turns his face from Louis, as if shy. 

"Hey, love." Louis reaches a hand to Harry's jaw, turning his face back toward him. "It's okay," he says. "It's okay."

Harry gives him a small smile at that, and it's such a quiet, precious thing that Louis nearly has to look away himself, nearly has to hide his own face in his shoulder to keep from bursting into tears again. Because Harry is so soft that it makes him want to be soft too. Makes him want to be gentle. He holds tightly to Harry's hand as Harry lowers himself into the warm water, helping keep his balance, and Louis can't help but catch sight of his bruises again, blue and black, bold splotches across his jaw and high cheekbones. 

Fuck, but he could kill someone right now. He really, honest-to-god could. 

Swallowing his anger, he instead reaches for the bottle of shampoo, settling down on top of a towel he'd placed over the ledge of the tub next to Harry. 

"Can I?" he asks, and Harry nods, his pale eyelids falling closed, dark lashes splaying over warm cheeks. He's so beautiful, Louis thinks again, for the thousandth—for the hundred-thousandth—time, and he's not sure it will ever be different when he looks at Harry. He's not sure he'll ever in his entire life be able to face Harry without feeling something extraordinary overcome him, without feeling like he's drowning in emotion, in that strange, impossible feeling of loving something so much you feel like you might break open with it. He feels too small to contain it, too small to even be a part of it.

He scrubs the shampoo into Harry's hair, focusing on the way his fingers feel against Harry's scalp. Trying to will them to stop shaking, because one of them has to be brave, don't they? One of them has to be okay. 

"Haz," he says, whispers the words into the heavy space between them. "Will you tell me what happened?"

Harry squeezes his eyes closed. Louis can feel the way his body goes tense at the words, and Louis has felt like crying for the last hour but now he can barely hold it back. He knows he asks a lot of the world sometimes, but if he had to pick just one thing, he would pick Harry. Before his writing, before his books. He wants Harry, and he wants Harry to trust him, and he wants Harry to not flinch when Louis asks him to share pieces of himself with him.

"Please, Haz."

Harry lays his palm flat on top of the water, lets it settle there for a moment before allowing it to drift slightly to his right, pinky finger brushing against Louis' ankle where it's submerged in the bath water. A moment later, Louis feels Harry's slender fingers wrap around his ankle. It's nice, and it brings Louis' blood down from a boil to a simmer. In all the time he's known Harry Styles he's never felt this close to him. 

"Harry, love . . ." Louis doesn't know what else to say. He wants to kill whoever did this to Harry, wants to know their name and their occupation, their hobbies and likes and wishes and the things they love most in the world, just so he can take every single last one of them away. He wants to exact precise and calculated revenge, and then he wants to hide away in a corner and cry for a sold two months. 

And Christ, why the fuck does he always want so many things? 

He opens his mouth to ask Harry to talk to him again—to beg him—but Harry's fingers around his ankle squeeze lightly, and then he answers, "It was just . . . someone, Lou. Some client I've been working with for years. In Paris, he just . . . I said I didn't want to do something and he got so mad. He was so mad, Lou, I don't know . . . ." Harry's quiet voice trails off, gone vibrato at the end, slipping away into the silence. 

Louis rinses the shampoo from Harry's hair and moves on to the conditioner. His fingers won't stop shaking no matter how hard he wills them to. 

"They let me go," Harry says. His thumb rubs across Louis' ankle in gentle, circular strokes. "My agency—they let me go. Like, they fired me." His voice is so quiet that Louis has to dip his head toward Harry to hear him correctly. "I guess they valued the, um, customer more than my services or whatever." 

" _Harry._ " Louis' fingers freeze in their ministrations. "Harry, I don't . . .” He swallows, all his forgotten anger bubbling again toward the surface. He licks his lips, has to look away. “ _Please_ tell me who it was."

Harry shakes his head beneath Louis' hands. "Was just some person, Lou. S'always just some person."

He sees Harry's eyes squeeze closed, and immediately begins rinsing the conditioner from his hair, massaging at his scalp and temples as if it will somehow clear his head. He can only imagine what Harry's going through right now. And Louis—he needs to help him. He needs to help him and hold him and take care of him. He needs to make the bruises on Harry's cheeks disappear, to brush over them softly with erasers until they've entirely disappeared. Fuck, but he wishes he could make Harry okay like right now. 

Harry shifts in the tub, and the water sloshes about, nearly spilling over the side. He looks like an angel, alabaster skin almost as white as the tub itself, hair curling at the nape of his neck, falling loose across his back. Louis is afraid of losing him suddenly, afraid he's pushed him too far, asked too much of him. After all, it was hardly a couple of weeks ago when he had allowed Louis to unbutton the top few buttons of his shirt for the first time. 

"I just want you to be okay," he tells Harry, and it’s raw and vulnerable and terrifying. He wants to touch him, but he refrains. It's one of the most difficult things he's ever done. 

"I will be," Harry refutes, but his voice is still small. 

Louis bites back a frustrated groan. "No you won't, Harry, you— _why_ won't you tell me who did this to you?"

Harry's fingers around Louis' ankle tighten again. "Because it doesn't matter, Louis," he says. "I don't know how to find him, and you won't either—"

" _Try me_ ," Louis interrupts. He feels vicious, like he could do something truly cruel to another human being, for the first time in years.

"Louis." Harry looks at him for the first time since stepping into the bath, eyes wide and wet and so breathtakingly green. "Louis, it's over. I told the agency. They know, okay, they know."

"Then why did they fire you?" He feels his heartbeat racing, fire in the tips of his fingers, because it's Harry, and Harry doesn't deserve this. 

The boy shrugs, strands of his wet hair slipping from his shoulders to his back. "Too much trouble," he says, shifting in the bathtub. It’s difficult for him, Louis knows. _God_ , his boy is brave. "Like, they think it's partly my fault. And it is, Louis, I mean I didn't want—"

"No." His voice comes out steely and cold, incontestable. He likes knowing he's capable of it. 

"I just—"

"No, Harry," Louis repeats. "It's not your fault. Don't you dare believe it's your fault." 

The bathroom lights flicker, and Louis stands, resolutely ignoring their nakedness as he holds out the towel for Harry to step into. He lets Harry wrap himself in it, a strange warmth flooding his body at the sight of the boy he loves warm and snuggly in a soft white towel. There’s a part of him that feels like he’s failed, like somehow he had thought that getting Harry into a bath and washing his hair would clear the bruises from his skin, but mostly he just feels relieved. Relieved that Harry is alive, that he’s here, that he’s Louis’.

Louis wants to keep him; he knows it now.

He doesn't know what falling in love is supposed to be like. He's read a hundred different books, and they've each described it differently than the one before. He's heard his friends talk of it—Niall and Liam and the lads—but nothing they've said during their descriptions of the feeling has ever resonated with him. But this—this aching, desperate, perfect thing—feels exactly the way he's always imagined it. Something so frightening and brilliant at once, beautiful and terrible, almost disparate in that it manages to break his heart and turn him giddy at the same time.

He watches, awestruck, as Harry steps toward him, shuffling across the tile floor with the towel wrapped tightly around his shoulders, and he thinks:

_There is so much music in you:_

_bare feet against the floor,_

_the sandpaper glide of your palm on the stair rail,_

_of your skin against mine,_

_of your ceaseless fingers tapping at the table._

_He's music,_  Louis thinks. _I'm in love with a song._

He doesn't know quite how to handle that. He doesn't know quite how to keep himself from being sentimental when Harry is around. 

He doesn't know if that's a good thing, but he really hopes it is.

“Harry,” he says, and Harry tilts his head to look at him. Louis looks at the ceiling. “I’m sorry.”

“Lou—“

“I’m sorry this happened to you.”

He feels Harry’s hand at his waist. He keeps his eyes closed, because it’s easier.

“S’not your fault either,” Harry says, voice soft. Louis could die from love for him.

He nods, swallowing, forcing himself to look back at Harry’s face.

"Hey," he whispers, refusing to turn his head and hide his blush. He opens his mouth, then closes it, shaking his head. Finally he says, "I want to put something on those bruises, yeah?" He sweeps the back of his knuckles softly across Harry's cheek, and he still isn't wearing any clothes but that's fine, they're fine. "I haven't got any here, but—"

"I have some at mine," Harry answers, words just as quiet, and Louis bites his lip because it's exactly what he had wanted him to say. 

"Alright," he decides, brushing gentle fingers over the towel at Harry's hip. "Let's get ourselves into some clothes, and then,"—he drops a barely-there kiss to the boy's cheek—"let's go home."

 

* * *

 

Their nights are fragile, and gentle, and Louis kisses Harry without asking for anything else.

The bruises fade. One by one by one.

Louis _almost_ doesn’t want to commit homicide anymore.

 

* * *

 

And it’s alright, until it isn’t.

 

* * *

 

Louis has wondered, ever since Harry’s agency let him go, if it means that Harry is finished with working as an escort. He hopes to God it does, but he also is afraid to ask. Even on the days when Harry is perfectly himself—laughter flushing his cheeks as he holds Louis’ hand in the back room of the bookstore—Louis feels on edge. Feels like he’s just been handed a book in a foreign language without any sort of translator, like Harry is still this fleeting enigma that could disappear at any moment. Feels like if Harry would just trust him enough to confide in him the stories from his past, that maybe Louis would feel less like he’s one step away from losing him every minute of the day. Maybe Louis could take better care of him.

He doesn’t want Harry to feel like he has to tell Louis all of his secrets, but Louis just . . . he doesn’t even know why Harry started working as an escort in the first place, doesn’t know why he had insisted so often that he couldn’t stop, doesn’t know anything, really, is what it comes down to. And he doesn’t know how to ask without coming across as pushy.

And so he holds Harry’s hand tighter whenever he can, reads him passages from his favorite books, buys him flowers and tells him he’s beautiful, tries to keep Harry happy in as many ways as he knows how.

A week and a half after Harry's Paris trip, Louis is climbing the stairs in Harry's house when he hears a muffled sob. It’s coming from their room—well, Harry’s room, but Louis has more or less adopted it as his own—and he takes the rest of the steps two at a time without hesitation.

The hallway is dark, and Louis moves quietly toward their bedroom door.

He stops before he enters the room, hearing with perfect clarity the rat-tat-tattling of his hand shaking against the brass doorknob, and takes the deepest breath he can, because he can't be scared right now. Harry is crying, for God’s sake, and Harry is the one who needs  _him_ , and Louis—he needs to be brave. The shaking doesn't stop, however, and he doesn't know what to do, doesn't want to go in there falling all over himself and frightening Harry half to death, knows if he doesn't play his cards right and say the proper words, that Harry will think he's angry with him. He thinks of the books he's read, the fairy tales and the epic novels about heroes who were always small and scared and yet somehow managed to do the most important things, and he thinks that if he can't be brave himself then he'll just have to pretend to be someone who is. 

The rat-tat-tattling vanishes. His hand stills. He pushes the door open, letting it swing quietly before the doorknob clatters against the wall.

Harry jumps, head flying up, eyes wide. He's sitting on the side of the bed, legs hanging off, the window on the far right wall casting moonlight over him and edging his silhouette in blue and silver. His hair is disheveled and wild, tangled wisps framing his face in the soft moonlight, his lips wine red and his mouth open in shock, face wet with tears. He's got a pair of grey sweatpants on, and their  _Louis',_ Louis notices, which makes his chest feel suddenly like it's being pressed down upon, like he's just been knocked over and something heavy has been dropped right over his heart. He's not even sure how to feel about that, about Harry wearing  _Louis'_ clothes when usually it’s the other way around, and he wants to know if Harry thought about it or if it was simply an arbitrary choice, wants to know if Harry put those on because he wanted to or if the sweatpants just happened to be lying around and were the most convenient item of clothing in his vicinity.

He's not going to ask though, because right now Harry has gone sheet white against the dark room. He's holding something in his hand—it's money, Louis realizes—and as Louis takes a small step into the room, he tries to hide it on the other side of him, behind his leg. 

He clears his throat, trying to keep his voice steady and even. "Harry?" God, but he hopes this isn’t what he thinks it is.

"Louis," Harry says, and God, his voice is broken, fingernails scratching over cotton. Louis has to reach an arm across his body and physically pinch himself to keep from thinking about why. "Hi." Harry's shifting around a little on the bed, the hand holding the money tucking itself under the leg that's farthest from Louis.

Louis sighs, putting on a small, pained smile. His insides are rattling like mad, but he's starting to feel calmer on the outside, softer, like he can be whatever Harry needs him to be just because he's Harry and Louis is Louis and this, he knows without a doubt, is what his body was made to do. 

"I saw the money, Haz," he tells him, keeping his voice a tired sort of sweet. "No need to hide it."

Harry goes stiff for a moment. "Oh," he says, before deflating and withdrawing the money from under his leg, holding it in his lap. It's a good amount of money, Louis thinks, which means he doesn't have to go murder some bastard's ass for stinting Harry.

Still, he wants to burn it. He wants to throw it into the river. 

He takes another step into the room, plucking at the hem of his t-shirt. "I . . . I thought you were maybe stopping. Did they let you go back?"

Harry shakes his head quietly. "No."

And  _oh._ That's.

That's. 

" _Harry_ ," Louis breathes, and he's trying to keep his voice soft and reassuring-like, but he isn't sure that it's working. He's scared all over again, can feel his heart cracking behind his ribcage and the sound is loud, it's thunderous. "Harry, that's _dangerous_."

At the edge of the bed, Harry is suddenly wracked by a full-body sob, his long body bending over itself as he hangs his head. His back shakes and shakes, and fuck, Louis wants to hold him.

He moves across the room quickly, kneeling down in front of him and taking his hands in his own. Harry's still holding the money, wet between his fingers where tears have fallen down onto the paper. Outside, the moon is quiet and unmoving, a blurry light hung low in the sky.

"I just want to be _okay,_ " Harry chokes out, and it sounds so similar to Louis' own internal monologue that he's taken aback

" _Baby,_ " Louis whispers, and it comes out hoarse. "Baby, I know you do. And we're going to figure it out, okay? But not this way."

Harry shakes his head, but he still won't look at Louis. His eyes are on their hands though, and so Louis squeezes them together, letting Harry know that he's here, that they're okay. 

"It's not safe, Harry," he says. I can't let you . . ." He breaks off, because he knows how Harry hates it when Louis tells him what he can and can't do, but he just. This is so important. This is too important to let go. He decides to say it anyway. "I can't let you keep doing this, love. You mean so much to me."

Harry chokes out a sob, folding nearly in half over their tangled hands. Louis can feel his hair tickling his wrists where it falls over Harry's face, over his shoulders, can feel the way Harry's breathing has gone ragged and the wetness of his tears. 

"Not now, Lou," he says, turning his head sideways to dry his face against his arm and shaking his head in the process. "I don't wanna talk about this now. M'not gonna." And then, "Please don't make me?"

Louis swallows down his protests, all nine hundred and something of them, because this is a conversation they need to have and one that he is going to ensure they do have, but maybe right now is not the best time. Maybe right now Harry just needs someone to take care of him, and that's. Louis can do that. Louis can do that and he's good at it and Harry needs it, and so he bites his tongue around the words he was going to say and says instead, "Alright."

When Harry just sits there nodding, head still bowed, Louis stands up. He keeps Harry's hands in his own. 

"It's gonna be okay, Haz," he whispers, placing a quick kiss to the top of Harry's head. 

Harry nods again and let's out a shuddery, "Yeah." His hands are still clenched around the tear-stained notes that some boy Louis will now perpetually hate had given him earlier, and his body is still shaking a little from crying, cheeks flushed and eyelashes inky wet. He's shirtless and a bit sweaty and soft-looking, sitting there on the edge of the bed washed in moonlight, and Louis hates himself for it, but he wonders if the boy kissed him properly after or if he just left. 

He wonders if he touched Harry in the ways Harry likes, if he kissed the inside of his thighs and scratched a little at the back of Harry's scalp, if he told him he was beautiful and pressed his lips to that crinkle between his eyebrows that Harry gets sometimes when he's feeling too much. He wonders if the boy felt anything, and  _he must have,_ Louis thinks, because how could anyone not feel something with Harry? How could anyone hold Harry's body next to their own and not fall in love with at least some part of him—with his hands or his legs or his belly of the way his laughter sounds like a bad case of the hiccups? How could anyone touch him and not love him instantly? Louis doesn't understand it, doesn't even remember the days before his head became of chorus of adoration toward Harry, doesn't want to remember those days because he knows somewhere in the back of his mind that they were frustratingly empty.

He looks at Harry, and there's moonlight spilling from his body, reminding Louis of that first day when Harry led him into his art studio and the gold light seemed to be coming from somewhere beneath his skin. 

Louis' never been so fucking jealous of something he can't even touch, for getting to be inside of Harry always.

And suddenly, he can't do it anymore. He knows Harry doesn't want him while he's still working, but what Harry's doing now is dangerous and damaging and as far as Louis is concerned, over. He knows Harry's broken and confused and that he's going to need Louis' help to put himself back together again—

But Louis, he's broken too. 

He moves between Harry's knees, taking the money gently from his hands and putting it away in the bedside drawer. If he closes it with a bit more force than is necessary, well, that's only for him to know. He hates that money, wants to tear it into a thousand pieces. Harry is looking up at him, eyes wet, lips wet, skin wet. And it comes back to Louis then, that familiar rat-tat-tattling in his fingertips, that absolute terror edging him toward action, toward running for his life, toward holding on. 

He pushes both his hands into Harry's hair, shoving it away from his face, and leans in and kisses him.

It breaks his heart, the way Harry's hands lift and he  _clings._ The way he kisses  _back._

Louis makes a mental note to write it all down: 

 _His mouth_ , is as far as he gets before his thoughts spiral away from him.

And maybe Harry doesn't taste like Harry—maybe he tastes like some boy Louis has never met and never,  _never_  wants to. Maybe when Louis inhales, he's breathing in someone else's cologne and maybe when he touches Harry, he's touching damp skin pressed over by someone else's hands, but Louis doesn't  _care._  He doesn't care because underneath it all, it's Harry. It's Harry's mouth and Harry's hands and all the sounds filling the room right now belong to Harry. Still, when he breaks the kiss, breathing hard against Harry's mouth, he says, "You taste like him."

Harry just blinks up at Louis, eyes wide and wet. "I know."

And okay, alright, Louis can deal with this, he can  _fix_  this. He shuffles closer to Harry, still bracketed by his legs, and Harry's head falls back to follow his movement. His throat is long and pale, and Louis' hands are still shaking against Harry's face, his lips still wet from kissing him. 

Louis nods, once.

"I'm gonna make you taste like me."

It's enough to make Harry start whining and nodding frantically, tugging at the thin cotton of Louis' shirt to bring him closer, and Louis kisses him again, hard. He might be crying too, now. His hands on Harry's cheeks are wet with tears, and the noises he's making are breathy and choked, falling into Harry's mouth with every exhale that passes between them. He doesn't stop kissing him when he leans forward, doesn't stop when Harry falls backward onto the bed and Louis climbs over his body, settling himself on his thighs, doesn't stop when he scratches his nails against the soft skin behind Harry's ear and Harry's whole body shudders beneath him—an earthquake under the ocean, rippling, rippling. Louis wants to drown in everything that Harry makes him feel. He wants to fill his lungs with everything that he is.

He stops.

"Haz, baby." He allows his hands one last wander over the boy's body, over his waist and chest and the tops of his legs, before stilling them again on his face, brushing away tear tracks. All he can think is that this is where it starts. This is where it all starts, him and Harry. It's the beginning of everything. It's the beginning of everything, and no matter how long he's been waiting, he's not going to rush things. He's going to do this right. "Haz," he says again, just lets the word out soft into Harry's mouth. "I'm gonna draw you a bath, okay? Is that okay?"

Harry shakes his head, curls falling around his eyes, framing his face. He's so beautiful. Louis doesn't understand how he manages to be always so beautiful. 

"I don't wanna," he whines high in his throat, tugging at the waistline of Louis' jeans. Louis reaches down with one of his hands to stop him. 

"Sweetheart," he whispers. He laughs a little, kissing Harry's lips to keep him quiet. "We're gonna get you in a bath, alright? And wash your hair, make it all nice and soft. You like that, yeah?"

Harry's breathing hard when he says, "I like you, Lou." 

And fuck. Louis knows he does, is the thing, but hearing him say it out loud makes him giddy, makes him feel twelve all over again. He kisses Harry's cheek. 

"I know you do, baby. And after your bath, we'll go to your room and put on Nora Jones and I'll kiss you and cuddle you until you're fast asleep." Harry sniffles, and Louis kisses his other cheek, moving Harry's hand carefully away from the button of his jeans because as much as he wants that with Harry—as much as he wants everything with Harry—he doesn't want it now. Not right after some other guy has just left, and not before they talk about what happens next. "Can we do that?"

Finally, Harry nods, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back against the bed with a soft groan. The hand that Louis had been stealthily moving away from his waistline wraps itself around Louis', twining their fingers together gently, and Louis—he just. 

Louis loves Harry so much.

He thinks of vast, empty halls and light spilling through high windows, of towers that bloom up into the sky from their flower-bed horizons, of great, cavernous rooms that echo on and on and on, and he thinks that he loves Harry with a love that fills all of that and then some, a love that chases echoes to their ends and rebounds off of everything, lasting forever, for always, spinning away into the stars.

He thinks how terribly beautiful it is, to be a part of something so endless. So all-encompassing.

He thinks it's the last thing he'll ever ask for. 

 

  
* * *

 

  
It's just beginning to rain when Louis gets Harry up and into the small bathroom, water droplets tapping soft and slow against the little square of window above the tub, the world outside nothing more than a blur, an expanse of fog and static, wide and white and grey and surrounding the house like a blanket. Something in Louis tells him it's here to keep them safe tonight, to soften the edges of everything and protect them. 

They take a bath, together, the water sloshing around their knees and the shampoo creating a layer of bubbles around them, and it feels like a milestone somehow.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t until after, when Louis is tucked into Harry’s side on the balcony sofa outside of Harry's art room, the sky clear and the streets spread out beneath them, that Harry asks, “You know that professor I told you about?" and tucks the blanket more snugly around their bodies.

Louis feels his own body go entirely still, as if moving would somehow break the spell and keep Harry from saying anything more.

“I just wanted to make art," Harry goes on. "And he said he could help me do that, help me sell my art and what not."

Louis’ head is on Harry’s chest, and so he feels it when Harry takes a deep breath—in and out. Below, a car races by, a blur in the corner of Louis’ vision.

“Anyway,” Harry swallows, and Louis feels that too. “He was my favorite professor, and a good friend, and he . . .”

There’s a warm touch against Louis’ wrist under the blanket, Harry’s hand seeking out Louis’, and Louis tangles their fingers together and squeezes. Harry takes another deep breath before continuing.

“He, um . . .” Harry squeezes Louis’ hand in return, tightly, and he doesn’t stop. His eyes are closed and when Louis looks up at him, he presses his face into Louis’ hair. “He, um, he wanted things from me though.” Harry’s hand is shaking, and Louis’ isn’t and so he holds onto Harry with everything he has. “Like, my services or whatever.” Louis’ stomach twists, but Harry’s sentences are following each other quickly now, one after another. It’s the fastest Louis has ever heard him talk, the most careless he’s ever been with his words.

“It was so easy after that, Lou, I don’t know. He told me I was good at it, and other people thought I was good at it too, and I needed money for uni and for my art and I just . . . . I kept doing it. And then, like, it stopped being about that and started . . .” His breath is warm against the side of Louis’ head, and Louis keeps his eyes closed because if he opens them he’s afraid he might cry. The sky is grey, and Harry is still shaking in his arms.

"I got the job at the agency, and I just . . . every time, it made me feel gross. Like I was just . . . dirty. But I _have_ to do it, you know.” Louis doesn’t know. He doesn’t fucking know at all.

Harry keeps talking.

"Because I’m _good_ at it, Lou, because _he said_ I was good at it, back then, and I _couldn’t_ stop. I just, like, wanted to make art and be happy but he told me I wasn't any good at art. That I was better at sex, or whatever. That I needed to be this _character_. And God, I don’t . . . .”

He trails off, and Louis stays quiet aside from his heart rabbiting in his chest. Aside from the screaming in his head, the need to grab Harry and shout at him until he understands that he’s so, so good at so, so many things, like his painting and—

Then Harry says,

“I used to paint because I loved it, and now I only paint to feel beautiful again.”

It's a long moment before Louis can breathe again. He's crying—he knows he is but he can't help it—he's crying and he can't make himself stop this time. Which could mean that he's weak, or selfish, or whatever. But it could also mean he's tired, and maybe that he's too much in love with this boy to watch him being sad any longer.

"Lou? Lou, are you—"

"Yeah, Haz, I am. Jesus." He tries to laugh but the sound chokes in his throat. 

Harry sits back, and Louis tries to look away and fails—fails every time because Harry is beautiful and he can't _not_ look at him. Harry's eyes are wide and just as red-rimmed as Louis' probably are. He looks exhausted and, Louis notices, surprised. 

"Shit, I—shit, Lou, don't cry." Harry blinks at him. He swallows. For a moment it's quiet, and Louis thinks any second now everything will go back to the way it was: lovely and disconnected and just shy of perfectly happy. He tries to steel his heart, to convince himself it's all alright. No matter what, it's all alright. He's tired of lying.

Harry squeezes his hand. 

"Don't cry, Lou, please," he says again. And then: "I want to stop. I think I want to stop."

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Louis’ heart breaks.

 

It’s just a quiet thing, in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of wanted to deviate from the idea that he was selling himself from his art, and instead work with the idea that although he was originally selling himself from his art, he's now pretty much using it as a means to, like, make up for the person he thought he had become. It's actually really sad! Like, because of what this professor said to him and the path that it led him down, something that was really, really good for Harry sort of got twisted. His art, which he loved so, so much, got turned into something which he uses - which he NEEDS to use - as a means to make himself feel beautiful. I'M SAD NOW BYE. 
> 
> Also, the impact of teachers/professors/authority figures on the youth is absolutely massive - whether positive or negative - and so I wanted to address this idea as well.
> 
> ALL FEEDBACK IS APPRECIATED. Like seriously, if you hate it, please tell me.(:


	7. Something Like That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epilogue of sorts.
> 
> ALSO: I added a bit to the end of the last chapter, to make the story slightly more continuous. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I left this story somewhat unfinished, and so I wanted to add a brief ending to give myself and y'all some closure. I know it's not perfect, and I know there are gaps left to fill, and if I ever get around to it, I'll try to fill them. In the meanwhile, maybe you can fill them in yourself. :)
> 
> I don't know if I'll be writing any more any time soon, but I just want everyone who has been reading this to know that I appreciate you more than anything and that this story will always be dear to my heart! I've been struggling with mental illness and a family stuff for a while now, and while I love this story so, so much, I just don't have too much time to work on it these days! Maybe one day I will again though. Who knows!
> 
> All the love, Jess .xx

It takes almost a year for Harry to start wearing t-shirts around the house. They're soft, and cotton, and usually grey or blue and Louis loves them so much he could cry. He loves Harry so much he could cry.

When Harry quits his job, Louis publishes his first book. It's nothing like he thought it would be. It's a little too personal and a little too self-revealing, a series of snapshots surrounding the life of a young man with mental illness who is thrown into a new city, but the New York Times says it "holds nothing back in its vulnerability, in its enchanting and often spellbinding narrative, in the fragility and enormity of its smallest moments," and Louis thinks he might have done alright.

He sifts through his memories more often these days: Superheroes and paper-crown kings. Possibility vs. impossibility. All the fireworks in the sky at once.

He keeps his journal. He writes his stories. When words aren't enough, he watches Harry paint, or he lets Harry paint him, and it's just like it was at the beginning only it's better.

Louis still smokes but he smokes less, he still has panic attacks but he has them less, and Harry still wears shirts buttoned up all the way to the collar but he wears them _less_. And that's the point, isn't it? You can't meet someone and suddenly make them perfect. But you can meet them and make them better. Less not-okay. You can meet someone and make yourself less not-okay. And maybe you don't need them—maybe you could save yourself—but Louis thinks a little help isn't too bad. It's nice, even. Anyone can be a superhero.

 

* * *

 

Louis takes Harry to California, where the rent is higher but so is the tide, and the waves break against the rocks and the sky is blue and wild. His mom calls him about his book, and his sisters track down their whereabouts and proceed to fawn over Harry's art.

 _There's a studio,_ one of them tells him, _down by the middle school about a mile away. They're looking for teachers, you know_.

Harry says he doesn't know, but when he kisses Louis later that night he's smiling and Louis thinks that it must mean something. He is a writer, after all. To him, everything must mean something.

 

* * *

 

He's flipping through his old journals on a Saturday when Harry drops his head onto his shoulder from behind him, curls spilling over Louis' shoulder and tickling his collarbone.

He’s on the page where he says _I love you_ —where he finally wrote the words.

The walls in their little apartment are spun all blue and gold, and Louis turns around and steps back just enough to fit Harry’s face between his hands, thumbs brushing over the apples of his cheeks as he looks up at him. His hair is still rumpled, and his grey cotton tee, but there’s morning sketched out across his face, pale lingering moonlight and the soft pinks of early sunrise, a collage of light and shadow that dusts his skin in restless watercolor.

And god, Louis thinks, not for the first time, _Harry Styles is art._

But he isn’t the kind of art some people make him out to be, meant to be noticed and then left behind.

Harry is art in motion. Harry is alive. Harry is changing, changing, changing, and he’s changing the world—Louis knows it—and he’s changing Louis every single day. Harry isn’t a painting in a museum that you pay money to look at and then never see again. Harry is art the way meteor showers are art. He’s art the way thunderstorms are art. He’s art like breathlessness is art and the shout from the top of a mountain is art and he’s art like waking up at 2:00 a.m. next to the person you love is art.

Harry is art on fucking fire.

And Louis—he’s something like that too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find me on tumblr:  
> wordsbyjm.com :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading .x  
> I'm on Tumblr if you want to say hi or yell at me about something: [wordsbyjm](http://wordsbyjm.com/)


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